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THE  CRIME  OF  SILENCE 


THE  CRIME  OF 
SILENCE 

BY 

ORISON  SWETT  HARDEN,  M.D. 

u 
AUTHOR   OF    "keeping    FIT,"    **THE   JOYS   OF 
LIVING,"   "training  FOR  EFFICIENCY," 
AND  OTHER  LIFE  BUILDING  WORKS. 


NEW  YORK 

PHYSICAL  CULTURE  PUBLISHING  CO. 

FLATIRON  BUILDING 


^-$ 


Copyright,  1915, 
By  orison  SWETT  MARDEN 


GIFT 


.  THOSE  WHO  DO  NOT  KNOW 

The   multitudes   of   young   men   and   young   women   who   are 
ignorant  of  the  perils  to  which  their  lack  of  sex  training 
may   expose   them;   the   victim,s  of  wild   oats  sowing  who 
I  are  now  reaping  the  frightful  harvest  in  untold  mental 

■^  and  physical  agonies   as  a  result   of  such   ignorance; 

I  the    millions    of    fathers    and   m,others    whose    crim- 

*  inal  silence  on  this  most  important  of  all  subjects 

g  may  ruin  the  lives  of  the  sons  and  daughters  for 

!  whose  happiness  they  would  make  any  sacri- 

•;  fice;  to  my  unknown  friends  scattered  all 

over  the  world  whom  I  have  never  met,  but 
who,   I    feel,   are    one    with   me   in   the 
desire   to   give   the  world  a   lift   for 
the    things    worth   while,    this    little 
book  is  affectionately  dedicated  by 
The  Authoe 


PREFACE 

How  shall  we  teach  sex  hygiene?  How 
shall  we  safeguard  our  children  from  possible 
sex  perversion  or  contamination?  How  shall 
we  best  forewarn  and  forearm  them  so  that 
they  may  transmit  the  family  blood  without 
contamination  or  impurity,  may  pass  the  fam- 
ily name  down  to  their  children  as  pure  as  they 
received  it? 

Never  before  were  those  questions  upper- 
most in  the  minds  of  so  many  fathers,  mothers, 
preachers,  teachers  and  people  of  all  classes  as 
to-day. 

We  are  slowly  awakening  to  their  tremen- 
dous import.  The  age-old  crime  of  silence  in 
regard  to  sex  matters  is  at  last  being  broken. 
In  the  light  of  modern  progressive  thought  it 
seems  incomprehensible  that  society  should  so 
long  have  conspired  to  pass  over  in  silence  this 
vital  subject,  thus,  year  after  year,  exposing 
millions  of  our  youths  to  the  frightful  dangers 
flowing  from  ignorance  of  it.     Probably  the 


xii  Preface 

statement  of  a  recent  physician  writer  in  this 
connection  is  not  exaggerated.  "Pick  out  any 
ten  men  you  meet  in  the  street,"  he  says,  *'and 
at  least  nine  will  be  suffering  from  some  sort 
of  present  or  past  immorality." 

All  the  wars  of  history  have  not  caused  any- 
thing like  the  number  of  tragedies  which  have 
been  caused  by  this  criminal  silence.  There  is 
nothing  so  much  needed  to-day  as  non-pruri- 
ent, scientific  sexual  instruction. 

*'If  you  have  been  upon  these  waters  twenty- 
five  years,"  said  a  young  man  to  the  captain  of 
a  steamer,  "you  must  know  every  rock  and 
sandbank  in  the  river."  "No,  I  don't,"  was 
the  reply,  "but  I  laiow  where  the  deep  water 
is." 

It  is  not  so  much  the  object  of  the  author  of 
this  book  to  make  a  chart  of  the  dangers  to  be 
avoided  in  life's  voyage  as  to  mark  out  a  course 
that  is  sane  and  safe. 

It  is  sent  forth  as  a  beacon,  in  the  hope  that 
it  will  be  the  means  of  guiding  voyagers  away 
from  the  sex  rocks  and  reefs  on  which  unnum- 
bered youths  have  been  wrecked  in  the  past  be- 
cause they  were  not  safeguarded  by  the  light 
of  self-knowledge. 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I     Purity   is   Power 1 

II     The  Crime  of  Silence 19 

III     "Dangerous  Passing" 51 

IV  "A  Little   Devil  to   Play  With"    .      .     63 

V  White  Slavery  and  the  Child  Woman   .      81 

VI  How  the  Slave  Mart  is  Supplied    .      .      98 

VII  "Smuggling  Poisoned  Goods"  .      .      .      .115 

VIII     Mothers  and  Daughters 133 

IX     Perilous  "Pleasures" 150 

X     Fathers  and  Sons 166 

XI  Sowing  Wild  Oats  and  the  Harvest  .      .187 

XII  Medical  Quacks  and  Lost  Manhood  .      .211 

XIII  How  TO  Regain  Your  Manhood  .      .      .   230 

XIV  Why  "The  Unfortunate  Woman?"  .      .   250 
XV  Perils  of  the  New  Freedom   ....   275 

XVI  Woman's  Cruelty  to  Woman  ....   286 

XVII  The  Damnable  Double  Standard  .      .        305 


THE  CRIME  OF  SILENCE 

CHAPTER  I 

PURITY   IS   POWER 

My  strength  is  as  the  strength  of  ten. 
Because  my  heart  is  pure. — Alfred  Tennyson. 

Virtue  could  see  to  do  what  Virtue  would 

By  her  own  radiant  light,  though  sun  and  moon 

Were  in  the  flat  sea  sunk. — John  Milton. 

A  LEADING  lawyer  and  public  official  in  the 
Sandwich  Islands  overturned  a  lighted  lamp 
on  his  hand  and  was  amazed  to  find  that  the 
blazing  oil  caused  no  pain.  On  examination 
he  was  horrified  to  discover  that  he  was  a  leper. 

In  its  early  stages  moral  leprosy  causes  no 
physical  pain.  On  the  contrary,  its  insidious- 
ness  lies  in  the  very  fact  that  it  gives  its  victim 
gross,  sensual  pleasure.  While  titillating  the 
lower  animal  nature,  it  gradually  tends  to 
numb  the  spiritual,  to  blot  out  the  image  of  the 
Divine  in  man.     As  opium  deadens  the  physi- 


*2"  *       '  *'    TicE 'C]^iME  OF  Silence 

cal  sensibilities,  so  sexual  impurity,  while 
treacherously  undermining  the  body,  deadens 
the  moral  sensibilities,  and  soothes  the  wrong- 
doer into  unconsciousness  of  his  peril. 

There  is  a  profound  philosophy  in  the  lines 
which  Tennyson  puts  into  the  mouth  of  the 
stainless  young  knight,  Sir  Galahad, — 

My  strength  is  as  the  strength  of  ten. 
Because  my  heart  is  pure. 

Purity  strengthens;  impurity  weakens. 
One  is  constructive;  the  other  is  destructive. 
Purity  builds  up;  impurity  tears  down. 

Purity  is  power  because  it  means  integrity 
of  thought,  integrity  of  conduct.  It  means 
wholeness.  The  impure  man  can  not  be  a 
great  power  because  he  can  not  thoroughly  be- 
lieve in  himself  when  conscious  that  he  is  rotten 
in  any  part  of  his  nature.  Impurity  works 
like  a  leaven:  it  affects  everything  in  a  man. 
The  very  consciousness  that  impurity  is  work- 
ing within  him  robs  him  of  power.  He  may 
prosper  for  a  time,  but  there  is  a  canker  at  work 
in  his  nature  which  ultimately  destroys  him. 

In  every  realm  of  life, — the  physical,  moral, 
mental,  intellectual, — there  is  no  more  practi- 


Purity  Is  Power  3 

cal,  necessary,  health-preserving,  success-assur- 
ing command  than  "Keex3  thyself  pure."  It  is 
the  youth's  greatest  commandment.  Do  not 
listen  to  those  who  tell  you  that  "vice  is  a  neces- 
sity." Nothing  is  a  necessity  that  is  wrong. 
All  wickedness  is  weakness.  Vice  and  vigor 
have  nothing  whatever  in  common.  Purity  is 
strength,  health,  power,  character.  It  is  the 
divinity  in  man.  "Blessed  are  the  pure  in 
heart  for  they  shall  see  God"  should  have  been 
translated  "for  they  do  see  God." 

It  is  only  the  pure  in  heart  who  can  see  God, 
or  the  divine  in  man.  "A  pure  heart  is  the 
end  of  all  religion,  and  the  beginning  of  divin- 
ity." Impurity,  on  the  other  hand,  forms  a 
scale  upon  our  eyes,  covers  the  spiritual  vision 
with  a  curtain,  blinding  us  to  all  that  is  pure, 
clean  and  lovely.  It  draws  a  veil  between  man 
and  his  Creator.  It  shuts  the  door  between  its 
victim  and  his  God,  so  that  he  no  longer  sees 
or  appreciates  divine  qualities. 

Purity  of  life  means,  for  man  no  less  than 
for  woman,  physical  and  moral  health.  It 
means  efficiency,  harmony  of  faculties,  in- 
creased self-confidence.  It  means  courage  as 
against  cowardice,  a  positive  as  against  a  nega- 


The  Crime  of  Silence 


tive  mind.  It  means  initiative,  force,  instead 
of  imitation,  dependence. 

No  one  not  familiar  with  the  facts  knows  the 
fearful  mental  effects  of  the  violation  and 
abuse  of  the  sex  function.  There  is  no  other 
thing  that  so  affects  the  mind  as  the  conscious- 
ness that  there  is  something  wrong  with  the 
sex  life.  Thousands  of  people  have  com- 
mitted suicide  because  of  the  mental  depression 
caused  by  the  consciousness  of  contracting  a 
sexual  disease  which  they  thought  incurable. 
A  young  man  once  came  to  me  for  advice  with 
a  revolver  in  his  pocket,  and  told  me  that  un- 
less I  could  give  him  encouragement  or  tell 
him  where  he  could  get  relief  he  would  end  it 
all  then  and  there. 

Everything  in  the  human  organism  shows 
that  purity,  cleanliness  and  right  living  in  every 
form  are  not  only  entirely  normal  and  natural, 
but  are  absolutely  imperative  to  human  integ- 
rity, for  everywhere  that  sexual  impurity  has 
been  introduced  into  society,  a  terrible  curse 
has  followed.  Demoralization,  deterioration, 
tragedy  and  death  of  all  that  is  highest  and 
noblest  in  humanity  are  its  legitimate  fruits. 
Immorality,  impurity,  always  and  everywhere 


Purity  Is  Power  CK^ 

blights,  blasts,  deadens.  It  is  the  great  curse 
of  the  race. 

On  the  other  hand,  to  be  superbly  sexed, 
without  hereditary  taint  or  acquired  sex  abuse 
or  misuse,  means  more  than  anything  else  to 
the  individual.  Nothing  else  will  contribute 
so  much  to  mental  virility,  to  creative  power  of 
the  brain,  as  consciousness  of  sexual  integrity 
and  sexual  virility,  which  awakens,  enriches, 
and  vitalizes  all  the  faculties,  and  develops  the 
creative  energy  which  renews  the  whole  nature. 

It  is  the  law  that  any  human  function  whose 
normal,  direct  exercise  is  for  any  reason  denied 
will  be  transmuted  through  other  channels  into 
general  life  force.  This  creative  force,  which 
most  people  squander  and  wickedly  waste  in 
beastly  indulgences,  in  the  virtuous  man  is 
transmuted  into  brain  power,  soul  power.  It 
is  the  very  flowering  out  of  life.  (Men  who  lead 
a  pure,  clean  hf  e  are  infinitely  more  virile,  more 
magnetic,  more  forceful,  more  productive, 
more  buoyant,  more  spiritual  than  those  who 
squander  their  creative  energy  and  waste  their 
vitality  in  dissipation.  ^ 

Purity  means  virility  and  is  the  very  spirit 
of  the  master  book,  the  master  painting,  the 


[6/  The  Crime  of  Silence 

master  creation,  in  every  department  of  hmnan 

activity.     It  is  this  sex  virility  which  does  the 

most  superb  thing  in  every  line  of  human  en- 

deavol*.     It  is  this  that  sparkles  in  the  life. 

It  is  the  secret  of  spontaneity,  of  buoyancy.     It 

is  the  very  soul  of  joy  and  gladness. 

X     Intellectual  integrity  is  impossible  without 

/   moral  integrity.     If  there  is  any  disintegration 

I     or  demoralizing  influence  operating  anywliere 

J)  in  the  nature,  weakness  is  inevitable.     No  one 

\  can  live  a  life  which  is  sapping  his  vitality, 

/  which  is  running  counter  to  the  highest  thing 

in  him,  and  still  express  his  maximum  of  pos- 

\   sible  power. 

"How  many  great  minds,  irremediably  de- 
stroyed by  misguided  voluptuousness,"  says  M. 
Jean  Finot,  "are  cut  down  before  having  ex- 
pended for  the  human  race  one-tenth  of  their 
knowledge." 

The  same  author,  in  his  "Problems  of  the 
Sexes,"  quoting  Sainte-Beuve,  in  deploring 
this  waste  of  creative  power  caused  by  sexual 
dissipation,  says:  "Who  shall  say  how,  in  a 
great  city,  at  certain  hours  of  the  evening  and 
the  night,  there  are  periodically  exhausted 
treasures  of  genius,  of  beautiful  and  beneficent 


Purity  Is  Power 


works,  or  fruitful  fancies?  One  in  whom,  un- 
der rigid  continence,  a  sublime  creation  of  mind 
was  about  to  unfold,  will  miss  the  hour,  the 
passage  of  the  star,  the  kindhng  moment  which 
will  nevermore  be  found.  Another,  inclined 
by  nature  to  kindness,  to  charity,  and  to  a 
charming  tenderness,  will  become  cowardly,  in- 
ert, or  even  unfeeling.  This  character,  which 
was  almost  fixed,  will  be  dissipated  and  vola- 
tile." 

Upon  the  proper  use  and  conservation  of  * 
sexual  force  the  progress  of  civilization  itself 
depends.  All  history  shows  that  just  in  pro- 
portion as  the  sex  instinct  is  kept  sacred,  pure, 
and  the  life  essence  properly  used  and  con- 
verted into  creative,  productive  power,  does  a 
nation  reach  a  high  state  of  civilization. 
Wherever  this  instinct  becomes  generally  per- 
verted, as  it  did  in  ancient  Rome,  people  be- 
come devitalized,  lose  their  physical  and  men- 
tal stamina,  and  rapidly  deteriorate.  Where 
it  is  protected  by  virtue  and  purity  of  life,  the 
nation  rises  in  the  scale  of  civilization ;  where  it 
is  abused,  perverted,  the  nation  sinks  to  the 
level  of  low-flying  ideals. 

In  the  last  analysis  of  success,  the  main- 


8  The  Crime  of  Silence 

spring  of  achievement  must  rest  in  the  strength 
of  a  man's  vitality;  for  without  a  stock  of 
health  equal  to  great  emergencies  and  consis- 
tent longevity  even  the  greatest  ambition  is 
comparatively  powerless.  Dissipation  and  im- 
pure living  steal  the  energies,  weaken  the  na- 
ture, lower  the  standards,  blur  the  ideals,  un- 
dermine the  ambition,  and  lessen  the  whole  vi- 
tality and  power  of  a  man. 

This  is  true  not  only  of  physical,  but  also  of 
mental  impurity,  for  nothing  is  truer  than  that 
''To  be  carnally  minded  (sensually  minded) 
is  death."  There  are  multitudes  of  people 
who  break  the  seventh  commandment  mentally, 
who  are  injured  as  much  as  if  they  had  broken 
it  physically.  Mental  debauch  is  in  some  re- 
spects more  disastrous  in  its  effects  than  phys- 
ical debauch.  Lascivious  longings,  emotions 
that  run  riot,  uncontrolled,  are  most  demoraliz- 
ing to  the  character.  Some  of  the  worst  nerve 
diseases  are  really  nothing  but  sexual  neurosis, 
brought  on  by  lascivious  imaginings,  unlawful 
mental  revelings.  Those  whom  we  may  well 
call  sexual  neurotics  are  unbalanced,  selfish, 
usually  cold-blooded,  and  lack  all  sense  of  pro- 


Purity  Is  Power  9 

portion.     They  are  driven  under  impulse,  com- 
mitting all  sorts  of  criminal  deeds. 

The  mind  should  be  kept  as  unstained  as 
the  body.  Every  part  of  the  being  should  be 
regarded  as  too  holy  to  tamper  with,  too  sacred 
to  abuse,  for  the  integrity  or  purity  of  each 
part  of  one's  organism  has  a  direct  bearing 
upon  the  integrity,  purity,  and  efficiency  of 
every  other  part. 

If  a  person  who  has  always  previously  been  \ 
honest  commits  one  contemptible,  dishonorable    \ 
act,  the  texture  of  his  entire  character  seems     1 
to  be  changed  thereafter.     In  a  far  more  seri- y 
ous  degree  is  this  true  in  regard  to  the  sex  in^ 
stinct.     It  is  not  like  a  mistake  or  a  blunder, 
however  serious,  that  may  be  made  in  any  other 
direction.     This  would  not  materially  change 
the  hfe  structure;  but,  when  one  deliberately 
violates  his  sex  instinct,  the  tainted  leaven  never 
ceases  to  work  until  it  permeates  the  whole 
man.     No  human  being  has  ever  been  great 
enough  to  practice  immorality,  to  tamper  with 
his  sexual  nature,  without  suffering  very  seri- 
ous mental  and  moral  deterioration. 

Impurity,  because  of  its  blighting,  deaden- 


10  The  Crime  of  Silence 

ing  influence  upon  the  mental  as  well  as  the 
moral  faculties,  very  seriously  interferes  with 
one's  success  in  life.  Not  only  does  it  under- 
mine self-confidence,  but  it  also  takes  the 
bloom  from  life,  robs  it  of  that  buoyancy, 
spontaneity  and  effervescence  which  are  the 
products  of  virtuous  living,  pure  thoughts,  a 
clean  mind  in  a  clean  body. 

Sexual  indulgence  not  only  saps  the  physi- 

(cal,  the  mental  and  the  moral  vitality;  but  it 
also  takes  the  spring  out  of  life,  the  force,  the 
resilience.  It  destroys  freshness,  enthusiasm, 
the  impulse  to  do  and  to  be  one's  best. 

A  Roman  emperor  used  to  have  the  right 
hand  cut  off  of  every  prisoner  who  was  cap- 
tured in  war  so  that  the  men  could  not  fight 
again;  but  this  same  mutilation  also  destroyed 
their  productive  power  so  that  they  were  not 
as  useful  citizens  as  before.  Sexual  vice  is 
more  cruel  than  this  pagan  emperor.  It  not 
only  cuts  off  the  right  hand  of  its  victim's  ef- 
ficiency, but  it  also  murders  the  man  in  him, 
leaving  nothing  but  the  shell  of  his  former 
beauty  and  grand  possibilities. 

The  human  beings  who  have  attained  to  the 
highest   and   most   glorified   perfection   have 


Purity  Is  Power  11 

been  those  in  whom  sex  integrity  had  been  pre- 
served in  all  its  purity.  It  is  man's  relation  to 
divinity  which  paints  the  best  part  of  the  pic- 
ture, which  writes  the  divinest  thing  in  author- 
ship and  in  poetry.  It  is  the  sublimest  part  of 
genius,  of  creative  energy.  It  is  that  which 
sparkles  in  the  eye  and  is  that  which  furnishes 
the  sweetness  and  light  in  the  lover's  glances. 
It  is  a  source  of  the  sweetest  thing  in  friend- 
ship. It  is  that  which  gives  virility,  vigor, 
strength  and  sweetness  to  human  acts  and 
human  endeavor. 

Men  are  most  efficient,  most  vigorous,  when 
they  think  most  of  themselves,  when  they  have 
the  greatset  respect  for  themselves,  and  we  are 
all  so  constituted  that  we  can  not  respect  our- 
selves unless  we  do  right. 

A  man  is  a  giant  when  he  can  look  himself 
and  the  world  in  the  face  wdthout  wincing ;  but 
he  is  a  weakling  when  he  is  conscious  that  his 
self-respect  is  gone,  that  the  ermine  of  his  char- 
acter is  soiled,  polluted.  He  has  a  fearful 
sense  of  mutilation  and  shame,  of  lost  power. 
Many  a  man  has  been  kept  from  doing  a 
giant's  work  because  of  the  consciousness  of 
wrong-doing,  which  has  shorn  him  of  his  power ; 


12  The  Crime  of  Silence 

'so  that,  considering  it  from  the  most  selfish 
standpoint  alone,  impurity  generates  inferior- 
ity, weakness,  paralysis  of  energy,  the  killing 
[of  ambition,  the  beastializing  of  the  ideal,  the 
lowering  of  the  moral  and  physical  standards, 
— in  short,  the  loss  of  manhood,  the  loss  of 
womanhood. 

Purity  is  the  corner-stone,  the  very  founda- 
'tion  of  character;  for,  without  purity,  there 
/  can  be  no  sterling  quality,  and  without  quality 
there  can  be  no  superiority. 

Even  the  lower  animals  have  no  respect  for 
the  impure  man,  the  loose  liver.  F.  C.  Bos- 
tock,  the  celebrated  trainer  of  wild  animals, 
says,  "In  some  curious,  incomprehensible  way, 
wild  animals  know  instinctively  whether  men 
are  addicted  to  bad  habits.  It  is  one  of  the 
many  problems  that  are  beyond  human  under- 
standing. For  those  who  are  in  the  least  in- 
clined to  drink,  or  who  live  a  loose  life,  a  wild 
animal  has  neither  fear  nor  respect.  He  de- 
spises them  with  all  the  contempt  of  his  nature 
and  recognizes  neither  their  authority  nor  their 
superiority.  If  a  man  has  begun  to  take  just 
a  little  intoxicating  liquor  or  has  deviated  from 
the  straight  road,  animals  will  discover  it  long 


Purity  Is  Power  13 

before  his  fellowmen.  The  quahty  in  the 
trainer  which  dominates  the  animal  nature 
within  himself  is  precisely  the  quality  which 
dominates  the  animal  he  trains.  If  he  yields 
to  the  brute  within  him,  no  matter  how  little, 
his  perfect  poise  and  self-mastery  are  gone  and 
the  keen  instinct  of  the  wild  beast  recognizes 
this  instantly.  Brutes  seem  to  understand 
man's  degradation  to  their  level,  and  his  life  is 
in  danger  every  moment  he  is  in  their  cage." 

An  impure  man  is  never  out  of  danger.  He 
is  perpetually  risking  his  life  in  a  den  of  wilc^ 
beasts  which  he  harbors  within.  Nothing  is  scj 
pernicious;  nothing  will  so  quickly  undermine 
the  mental,  the  physical,  and  the  moral  life^ 
as  impure  practices,  vicious  habits.  We  all 
know  how  rapidly  those  who  live  impure  live^ 
bum  out  and  deteriorate  physically  and  age 
prematurely.  Impurity  is  decay.  Impurity 
is  death. 

Multitudes  manage  to  get  along  in  compara- 
tive comfort  and  many  have  even  achieved 
great  success  in  spite  of  painful  bodily  afflic- 
tions ;  but,  as  physicians  well  know,  when  there 
is  anything  wrong  with  the  sexual  life,  it  af- 
fects the  mind  even  more  than  the  body.    Many 


14  The  Crime  of  Silence 

impure  men  have  gone  to  insane  asylmns,  have 
committed  suicide,  or  have  been  so  afflicted  with 
worry,  mental  depression,  and  despondency 
that  they  have  not  been  able  to  do  any  effective 
work. 

I  have  known  a  girl  (and  there  are  multi- 
tudes of  similar  cases ) ,  who  stood  very  high  in 
her  community,  a  conscientious  church  worker, 
who  became  so  completely  transformed  in  a 
single  year,  after  she  had  been  betrayed  and 
abandoned  by  a  man  she  loved  and  trusted, 
that  it  did  not  seem  possible  she  could  be  the 
same  human  being.  No  other  sin  could  have 
wrought  such  terrific  changes  in  her  nature  in 
so  brief  a  time. 

There  is  something  about  the  sexual  instinct 
which  strikes  at  the  very  root  of  our  nature,  the 
very  marrow  of  our  being.  It  is  the  very  es- 
sence of  character;  and,  when  this  instinct  is 
preserved  in  all  its  integrity,  the  integrity  of 
absolute  purity,  when  the  sexual  life  is  kept 
wholesome,  healthy  and  robust,  the  whole  life 
blossoms  out  in  beauty  and  glory,  but  when  it 
is  perverted,  abused,  or  misused,  when  its 
sacredness  is  gone,  everything  else  seems  to  go 
with  it. 


Purity  Is  Power  15 

A  prominent  writer  says,  "If  young  persons 
poison  their  bodies  and  corrupt  their  minds 
with  vicious  courses,  no  lapse  of  time,  after  a 
reform,  is  likely  to  restore  them  to  physical 
soundness  and  the  soul  purity  of  their  earlier 
days." 

The  sexual  taint  seems  to  be  indelible.  Not 
even  religion  is  able  to  wipe  it  entirely  out,  for 
the  bitter  memory  of  past  excesses  haunts  the 
individual  clear  to  his  grave;  the  horrible  pic- 
ture mocks  one  even  at  the  point  of  death. 
We  can  not  tell  why  this  is,  but  it  would  appear 
that  Nature  herself  takes  revenge  for  the  vio- 
lation of  the  sex  instinct,  implanted  in  man  for 
the  continuance  of  the  race. 

Many  people  seem  to  think  that  if  their  acts 
are  pure  and  clean,  so  far  as  the  public  is  con- 
cerned, it  does  not  matter  what  they  do  pri- 
vately. The  privacy  of  the  deed  has  nothing 
to  do  with  the  results  to  ourselves.  A  shepherd 
once  saw  an  eagle  soar  out  from  a  crag.  It 
flew  majestically  up  far  into  the  sky,  but  by 
and  by  became  unsteady  and  began  to  waver 
and  wobble  in  its  flight.  First  one  wing 
dropped,  then  the  other,  and  at  length  the  poor 
bird  fell  to  the  ground.     The  shepherd  sought 


16  The  Crime  of  Silence 

^the  fallen  bird  and  found  that  a  little  serpent 
had  fastened  itself  upon  it  while  resting  on  the 
crag.  Unseen,  unfelt,  by  the  eagle,  the  ser- 
pent crawled  in  through  its  feathers,  and  while 
fthe  proud  monarch  was  sweeping  through  the 
i  air  the  reptile's  fangs  were  thrust  into  its  flesh, 
poisoning  its  blood,  and  bringing  it  reeling  to 
the  earth.  It  is  the  story  of  many  a  life. 
Some  secret  sin  has  long  been  eating  its  way 
into  the  heart,  and  at  last  the  proud  life  lies 
soiled  and  dishonored  in  the  dust. 

Without  purity  there  can  be  no  lasting 
greatness.  Vice  honeycombs  the  physical 
strength  and  destroys  also  the  moral  fiber. 
Now  and  again  the  community  is  shocked  and 
.  startled  when  some  man  of  note  topples  with  a 
crash  to  sudden  ruin  and  death.  Yet  the  cause 
of  the  moral  collapse  is  not  sudden  in  its  opera- 
tion. There  has  been  a  slow  undermining  of 
virtue,  a  gradual  poisoning  of  the  very  life  cen- 
ters going  on  for  years.  Then,  perhaps,  in 
an  hour  when  honor,  truth  or  honesty  is 
brought  to  a  crucial  test,  the  weakened  char- 
acter gives  way  and  there  is  an  appalling  com- 
mercial or  social  crash  which  too  often  finds 
an  echo  in  the  revolver  shot  of  the  suicide. 


Purity  Is  Power  17 

There  never  was  a  more  beautiful  prayer 
than  that  of  the  poor,  soiled,  broken-hearted 
psalmist  in  his  hour  of  shame  and  repentance, — 
"Create  in  me  a  clean  heart."  *'Who  shall  as- 
cend into  the  hill  of  the  Lord,  who  shall  stand 
in  His  holy  place?  He  that  hath  clean  hands 
and  a  pure  heart."  There  are  thousands  of 
men  in  this  country  to-day  who  would  cut  off 
their  right  hands  to  be  free  from  the  stain,  the 
poison  of  impurity  with  which  they  became 
tainted  in  youth. 

It  is  not  a  figure  of  speech  to  say  "Purity  is 
power."  It  is  literally  true.  Purity  is  the 
very  essence  of  our  being,  of  forcefulness,  of 
masterfulness. 

There  is  nothing  else  which  will  whittle  awayi 
the  life  quite  so  rapidly  as  indulgence  in  sexuaj 
vice.  When  a  man  is  guilty  of  this  sin  all  other 
bad  things  seem  to  rush  to  its  aid  to  help  pull 
him  down.  We  sometimes  see  a  tragic  illus- 
tration of  its  destroying  power  in  the  case  oi 
the  youth  who  is  sent  away  from  home  to  col- 
lege. Overwhelmed  by  his  new-found  f reedon 
he  becomes  sexually  contaminated,  plunges 
into  other  excesses,  and  in  an  incredibly  short 
time  goes  down  to  ruin  and  death. 


18  The  Crime  of  Silence 

The  impure  age  very  rapidly.  It  is  impos- 
sible to  dissipate,  especially  in  sexual  vice,  and 
keep  young.  It  is  well  known  that  the  women 
of  the  street  are  very  short-lived, — that  they 
only  average  four  or  five  years  in  thqir  miser- 
able business.  The  violation  of  the  most  sa- 
cred thing  in  them  so  demoralizes  and  devital- 
izes their  whole  being,  physically,  mentally, 
morally,  that  the  very  consciousness  of  having 
killed  the  most  precious  thing  they  ever  pos- 
sessed rapidly  grinds  away  their  lives.  Some 
of  them  age  more  in  a  single  year  than  a  girl 
who  lives  a  pure  life  does  in  ten. 

Purity  is  not  only  a  health-preserver,  but  it 
is  also  a  youth-preserver,  a  life-prolonger. 
The  pure  in  heart  reahze  the  Scriptural  prom- 
ise,'— "His  flesh  shall  be  fresher  than  a  child's. 
He  shall  return  to  the  days  of  his  youth." 

Oh,  no !  we  live  our  lives  again ; 

For,  warmly  touched  or  coldly  dim. 
The  pictures  of  the  past  remain: 

Man's  works  shall  follow  him. 

— J.  G.  Whittier. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE   CRIME   OF   SILENCE 

Self-reverence,  self-knowledge,  self-control. 
These  three  alone  lead  life  to  sovereign  power. 

— Alfred  Tennyson. 

Virtue  is  an  angel,  but  she  is  a  blind  one  and  must  ask  of 
knowledge  to  show  her  the  pathway  that  leads  to  her  goal. 

— Horace  Mann. 

"How  it  happened  I  can  hardly  under- 
stand," said  a  well-known  man  to  me  in  confi- 
dence, "for  when  a  boy  I  was  very  inquisitive 
and  eager  for  information  on  every  possible 
subject  of  inquiry;  but,  until  I  was  more  than 
twelve  years  old,  I  do  not  think  that  I  had 
given  even  a  passing  thought  to  sexual  matters. 
I  had  heard  a  few  "smutty"  stories,  it  is  true, 
but  they  had  no  suggestive  significance  of  las- 
civiousness  to  me,  and  were  interesting  or  not 
only  in  proportion  as  they  were  merely  intel- 
lectually witty.  Perhaps  my  escape  was 
largely  due  to  the  fact  that,  when  active,  I  was 
so  full  of  life  and  so  engrossed  in  sport  that 

19 


20  The  Crime  of  Silence 

there  was  no  chance  to  talk  to  me  about  any- 
thing besides  the  game  at  issue,  when  I  was 
playing,  for  I  played  with  all  my  might  and 
gave  my  playmates  all  they  could  attend  to 
to  prevent  my  beating  them.  When  I  was  not 
active  physically,  I  at  once  plunged  into  some 
book,  for  I  was  a  great  reader  and  could  so  con- 
centrate my  mind  that  I  could  read  undisturbed 
with  seven  brothers  and  sisters  playing  around 
me,  so  long  as  they  did  not  touch  me. 

*'But  one  day  a  sudden,  violent  thunder 
shower  drove  me  to  shelter  with  two  compan- 
ions under  an  old  shed,  where  we  had  to  remain 
about  two  hours.  The  conversation  drifted 
from  one  thing  to  another  until  one  of  the  boys 
asked  me  if  I  had  ever  practiced  self -abuse, 
calling  it  by  a  name  common  among  the  young. 
I  did  not  even  understand  what  he  meant,  and 
told  him  so ;  whereupon  he  explained  his  mean- 
ing, and  added  that  I  ought  to  try  it,  for  I  did 
not  know  what  a  good  thing  I  was  missing. 

"Yet,  even  after  this,  it  was  several  weeks 
before  I  did  try  it,  and  curiosity  rather  than 
inclination  was  the  impelling  motive.  Of 
course  I  repeated  the  act,  but  soon  realized  that 
in  some  way  I  did  not  comprehend  it  was  in- 


The  Crime  of  Silence  21 

juring  me  and  reducing  my  abounding  vivac- 
ity, so  I  decided  to  stop  it.  But  somehow  I 
did  not  stop,  and  then  came  the  most  sickening 
and  terrifying  consciousness  I  have  ever  ex- 
perienced, as  it  suddenly  dawned  upon  me  that 
I  was  in  the  remorseless  grip  of  a  cruel  habit. 
But  I  continued,  though  I  felt  much  as  the 
dying  western  stage  driver  must  have  felt  when 
he  cried  out,  in  the  delirium  of  fever,  *I'm  on 
the  down  grade,  and  I  can't  reach  the  brake!' 
"I  had  had  the  best  of  rehgious  as  well  as 
intellectual  training,  and  I  remember  thinking, 
one  day,  to  myself,  *Your  soul  is  no  longer 
your  own !  It  is  no  use  for  you  to  talk  of  such 
things  as  God  and  heaven,  for  they  are  not  for 
you!  You  are  worse  off  than  a  slave, — worse 
off  than  if  you  were  chained,  as  St.  Paul  said, 
to  the  body  of  death, — for  you  are  by  your  own 
.  deeds  dragging  out  the  most  miserable  of  lives 
and  seem  bound  to  go  down  to  the  most  miser- 
able of  graves.  Is  this  all  you  are  good  for? 
Is  this  what  you  were  created  for?  No,  I  was 
born  for  better  things,  and  I  will  not  become 
the  ghastly  victim  of  this  cruel  devil  that  seems 
to  possess  me  now!  It  was  a  hard  struggle — 
to  get  and  keep  my  hand  on  'the  brake,' — but  I 


22  The  Crime  of  Silence 

finally  won,  although  I  cannot  think  even  now 
without  a  mental  shudder  of  the  starless  mid- 
night of  despair  which  seemed  to  be  closing 
down  upon  me." 

If  this  was  the  experience  of  one  who  drifted 
into  this  practice  solely  through  curiosity,  with- 
out any  original  temptation  of  inclination, 
what  must  have  been  that  of  thousands,  per- 
haps millions,  of  others  of  naturally  prurient 
susceptivities?  If,  struggling  against  it  with 
all  his  might,  he  barely  escaped,  how  about 
others  of  weaker  wills  who  have  not  become 
alarmed  so  soon?  Where  were  all  the  "guard- 
ians and  protectors"  of  the  young  that  they 
gave  him  no  warning  or  instruction  in 
such  matters? — ^where  were  parents,  schools, 
churches,  the  state,  philanthropists,  and  others 
commonly  supposed  to  be  deeply  interested  in 
the  welfare  of  youth?  Think  of  building  a 
powerful  locomotive  or  steamship  and  putting 
it  upon  the  track  or  the  ocean,  as  the  case  may 
be,  with  all  steam  turned  on,  but  without  giving 
the  captain  any  chart  or  map  to  sail  by,  or  the 
engineer  any  idea  of  the  time  schedule  or  the 
meaning  of  the  danger  signals  along  the  line! 

"The  idea  that  ignorance  is  essential  to  inno- 


The  Crime  of  Silence  23 

cence  is  happily  being  exploded,"  says  Dr.  Irv- 
ing D.  Steinhardt,  "and  we  physicians  are  in  a 
better  position  than  the  laity  to  speak  of  the 
wreckage  and  disaster  that  result  from  igno- 
rance and  neglect  of  proper  instruction  on  sex 
hygiene." 

I  know  of  nothing  which  has  wrecked  the 
happiness  and  lives  of  more  young  people  than 
our  foolish  prudery,  our  criminal  silence,  re- 
garding the  most  vital  facts  of  their  being, 
facts  which  underlie  the  very  foundation  of  so- 
ciety. How  little  you  fathers  and  mothers 
who  remain  silent  on  the  all-important  subject 
of  sex  life  realize  the  painful  and  humiliating 
experiences,  the  terrible  suffering  and  wreck- 
age, which  your  silence  may  be  laying  up  for 
your  children  in  the  years  to  come.  If  you 
could  follow  them  into  the  future — follow  them 
to  the  confessional,  to  their  clergymen,  to  their 
physicians,  to  the  operating  table ;  if  you  could 
only  hear  them  years  hence  pouring  into  the 
ears  of  their  priests,  their  pastors,  their  doc- 
tors, the  woes  of  their  blighted  lives,  you  would 
certainly  learn  a  lesson  which  you  would  never 
forget.  You  would  realize  that,  while  it  may 
be  difficult  for  you  now  to  speak  on  this  delicate 


24  The  Crime  of  Silence 

subject  to  your  children,  your  silence  is  putting 
a  terrible  premium  on  their  ignorance,  a  pre- 
mium which  may  cost  them  untold  future  suf- 
fering, which  may  bring  tragedy  into  their 
homes  when  they  marry,  and  may  entail  disease 
worse  than  death  upon  their  children. 

We  are  only  just  beginning  to  recognize  and 
appreciate  the  tremendous  modifying  power  of 
the  sex  element  in  the  growing  boy  and  girl, 
the  body-changing,  mind-changing,  character- 
molding  influence  of  the  sexual  organs. 

Accidents  or  surgical  operations  resulting  in 
the  destruction  of  the  sexual  glands  in  the  boy, 
say  of  ten  or  twelve  years  of  age  or  a  httle 
older,  cause  radical  changes  in  everything 
which  marks  sex  distinction.  The  voice  be- 
comes thin  and  squeaky  and  the  muscles  grow 
flabby  and  soft ;  the  chest  instead  of  developing 
becomes  narrow,  the  shoulders  often  slope  and 
the  mind  loses  its  virility.  In  other  words,  the 
boy  becomes  mentally  as  well  as  physically 
emasculated.  He  has  lost  his  stamina  and  the 
very  characteristics  which  mark  the  strong  man 
and  he  becomes  feminine.  In  fact,  if  he  were 
dressed  like  a  girl  he  would  pass  for  one,  but  a 
very  weak,  characterless  one. 


The  Crime  of  Silence  25 

Equally  radical  changes  take  place  in  the 
girl  who  loses  her  ovaries.  Her  fine,  delicate 
feminine  characteristics  begin  to  disappear,  and 
she  takes  on  the  very  masculine  qualities  which 
the  emasculated  youth  loses.  Her  physique, 
her  muscles,  her  voice  become  masculine, 
heavy,  coarse.  She  often  takes  on  an  enor- 
mous amount  of  fat,  and  in  fact  completely 
loses  her  comely  feminine  form.  And  she,  just 
as  the  boy  in  girls'  clothes  would  pass  for  a  girl, 
in  male  attire  would  pass  for  a  man,  but  a  very 
inferior  man. 

In  short,  the  emasculated  boy  loses  his  viril- 
ity and  masculinity  and  the  emasculated  girl 
her  femininity  and  attractiveness ;  each  loses  the 
peculiar  charm  and  distinction  of  sex. 

The  unfortunate  thing  is  that  the  emascu- 
lated male  is  neither  a  man  nor  a  woman,  nor 
the  emasculated  female  either  a  woman  or  a 
man.  Each  develops  weakened  characteris- 
tics of  the  opposite  sex. 

Can  any  other  knowledge  then  be  half  so 
important  as  this  knowledge  of  oneself,  of  one's 
nature,  which  makes  one  what  he  or  she  is,  a 
knowledge  which  may  make  all  the  difference 
between  a  mongrel,  a  half  animal  and  half 


26  The  Crime  of  Silence 

human  being,  and  a  magnificent  man  or  a 
superb  woman ! 

The  time  will  come  when  to  keep  such 
knowledge  away  from  a  boy  or  girl  will  be  con- 
sidered not  only  cruel  but  criminal.  The  only 
possible  way  of  improving  the  race  and  of  pre- 
venting untold  misery  and  horrible  tragedies 
caused  by  sex  wastage,  sexual  abuse,  is  through 
proper  instruction  of  the  youth. 

There  is  no  other  subject  a  hundredth  part 
so  important  to  youths  as  that  of  the  sex  in- 
stinct and  the  relations  of  the  sexes,  about 
which  parents  have  hitherto  preserved  such 
foolish  silence.  They  have  been  careful  to 
teach  their  children  in  religious  matters;  they 
have  been  particular  about  their  going  to 
church  and  to  Sunday  School,  about  their  men- 
tal development,  what  they  study  and  what 
they  read;  they  have  been  anxious  for  them 
to  associate  with  cultured  people  in  order  that 
they  might  acquire  good  breeding,  but  concern- 
ing the  great  facts  of  their  sexual  life,  facts 
which  speak  so  loudly  in  their  nature,  which 
clamor  so  persistently  and  insistently  for  rec- 
ognition, they  have  had  nothing  to  say.  Prac- 
tically all  their  childixn  have  learned  regarding 


The  Crime  of  Silence  27 

this  subject  is  by  inference,  from  vulgar  jokes 
and  innuendoes,  all  sorts  of  distorted  informa- 
tion which  they  pick  up  from  questionable 
sources  (which  only  arouses  a  morbid  and  most 
vicious  curiosity) ,  but  not  a  particle  of  instruc- 
tion have  they  received  from  the  people  they 
respect  and  revere  and  to  whom  they  have  a 
right  to  look  for  safeguarding  instruction. 

I  know  many  parents  who,  through  some 
fatally  mistaken  idea  of  modesty,  lack  the 
moral  courage  frankly  to  tell  their  children  the 
truth  about  their  sex  nature,  and  who  try  to 
get  teachers  or  friends  to  broach  the  subject  to 
them.  Do  you  realize,  my  parent  friends,  that 
when  you  delegate  this  sacred  duty  to  others 
you  are  weakening  that  most  precious  of  all 
bonds  between  child  and  parent, — that  unques- 
tioned confidence  and  sweet  trust  which  Nature 
has  implanted  in  the  heart  of  the  child,  who  in 
his  tenderest  years  looks  up  to  his  parents  as 
authorities  on  all  matters?  Isn't  it  infinitely 
better  to  put  aside  your  false  modesty  and  teach 
your  children  the  true  and  beautiful  meaning 
of  sex  than  to  hazard  their  future  happiness 
and  efficiency,  or  to  hear  in  after  years  that  bit- 
ter cry  which  has  gone  up  from  many  a  young 


28  The  Crime  of  Silence 

soul  in  extremity  of  anguish:  "Oh,  why  did 
not  my  parents  tell  me  the  truth  about  myself ! 
Why  did  they  not  hang  out  the  danger  signal 
upon  the  sex  rocks  and  reefs  before  it  was  too 
latel" 

Isn't  it  a  thousand  times  better  that  your 
children  should  learn  the  truth  about  them- 
selves from  those  who  love  them  as  their  own 
lives,  than  to  get  a  confused  idea  of  it  from  the 
vicious  insinuations  and  vile  suggestions  of 
those  who  associate  with  them  in  the  street  or  at 
school? 

Some  parents  flatter  themselves  that  their 
children  are  safe  in  private  schools,  where  only 
the  best  boys  and  girls  are  supposed  to  be ;  but 
in  most  private  schools,  as  in  most  other  schools 
and  colleges,  sexual  demoralization  is  more  or 
less  rife.  How  often  it  has  happened  that  a 
single  sexual  pervert  has  contaminated  the 
morals  of  an  entire  school,  and  the  pity  of  it  is 
that  the  harm  is  usually  done  before  even  the 
teachers  know  of  it.  The  mischief  is  carried 
on  so  secretly,  the  evil  is  so  subtle,  the  impurity 
leaven  is  so  insidious  that  the  whole  character 
is  often  honeycombed  before  the  teachers  or  the 
parents  find  it  out. 


The  Crime  of  Silence  29 

Mothers  who  think  it  is  a  terrible  thing  to 
post  children  in  sex  matters,  who  think  that 
they  should  find  out  these  things  themselves, 
little  realize  how  often  it  happens  that  their 
own  little  daughters,  even  in  the  primary- 
school,  or  later  in  private  schools  or  seminaries, 
are  already  sexually  contaminated  because  of 
their  ignorance. 

"Nearly  fifteen  years  in  the  Juvenile  Court 
convinces  me,"  says  Judge  Benjamin  Lindsey, 
"that  there  is  hardly  one  child  out  of  one  hun- 
dred who  has  reached  the  age  of  twelve  that 
hasn't  come  in  contact  with  some  sort  of  sex 
experience,  either  through  vulgar  stories  or 
that  sort  of  curiosity  that  is  more  or  less  natural 
and  to  be  expected  with  a  growing  child.  I 
used  to  think  that  this  was  true  with  more  par- 
ticular reference  to  boys ;  but  I  am  convinced — 
as  is  also  the  lady  assistant  judge  of  this  court 
(who  has  sat  with  me  in  girls'  cases  for  more 
than  ten  years) — that  it  is  almost  equally  true 
of  girls.  We  are  almost  constantly  having  to 
shock  mothers  with  disclosures  concerning  the 
sex  immorality  of  their  daughters  because  of 
the  cases  that  have  to  come  under  the  observa- 
tion of  the  officers  of  the  Juvenile  Court." 


30  The  Crime  of  Silence 

This  statement  of  Judge  Lindsey's  should 
arouse  every  father  and  mother  to  the  necessity 
of  sex  instruction.  If  you  Have  not  properly  in- 
structed them,  it  is  always  safe  to  presume  that 
your  boys  and  girls,  unless  very  small,  have 
picked  up  a  great  deal  more  of  information  re- 
garding sex  matters  than  you  have  any  idea  of. 
Your  silence  on  these  matters  does  not  keep 
them  innocent  of  the  vulgar,  distorted  side  of 
the  sex  subject.  They  get  this  in  spite  of  you, 
and  the  pity  of  it  all  is  that  they  do  not  have 
your  instruction  to  neutralize  and  take  the  at- 
tractiveness out  of  this  luridly  colored  infor- 
mation. Unfortunately,  there  are  always  hu- 
man brutes  who  are  ready  to  put  into  the  minds 
of  the  young  all  sorts  of  vile  insinuations,  half- 
truths,  and  vicious  suggestions,  sensual  insinu- 
ations, and  to  put  into  their  hands  foul  litera- 
ture and  lewd  pictures.  There  are  always 
those  who  take  pleasure  in  feeding  the  curiosity 
of  the  young  upon  distorted  sex  knowledge 
which  simply  inflames  the  passions  and  de- 
velops a  morbid  imagination. 

Sexual  dangers  lie  largely  in  the  very  secrecy 
maintained  by  those  who  should  give  instruc- 
tion on  the  whole  subject.     But  Nature  herself 


The  Crime  of  Silence  31 

will  not  tolerate  ignorance  on  this  matter;  she 
forces  knowledge  regarding  it.  The  imperi- 
ous questioning,  the  insistent  desires,  the  call  of 
awakening  passion,  of  burgeoning  youth  de- 
mand an  explanation.  Who  is  going  to  give 
this  explanation?  That  rests  with  you  par- 
ents. If  you  do  not  give  it  to  them,  your  chil- 
dren will  pick  up  whatever  sex  information 
they  can,  wherever  they  can,  out  of  your  sight 
and  hearing.  Information  thus  acquired  is 
never  clean,  pure  and  wholesome,  as  it  would 
be  if  it  came  from  the  right  source,  but  always 
gross  and  vulgar,  always  discolored  with  low, 
sensual,  lecherous  suggestion. 

One  of  the  great  objections  to  posting  youth 
regarding  their  sex  nature  is  that  it  will  tend  to 
arouse  a  morbid  curiosity.  Now  I  believe,  on 
the  contrary,  that  a  knowledge  of  the  scientific 
facts,  simply,  freely  and  frankly  imparted,  at 
the  right  age  and  with  tact,  is  the  only  thing 
that  will  prevent  the  possibility  of  morbid  curi- 
osity on  the  subject.  Children  are  only  curi- 
ous about  that  which  is  concealed.  A  frank, 
open  discussion  will  dispel  any  morbid  curios- 
ity. It  is  the  hidden  truth,  that  which  is 
clothed  in  mystery,  that  arouses  curiosity. 


32'  The  Crime  of  Silence 

Has  it  ever  occurred  to  you  that  your  chil- 
dren must  think  it  strange  that  this  wonderful 
subject  of  sex,  which  interests  them  more  than 
anything  else  during  their  perilous  years,  is 
one  that  is  never  mentioned  at  home,  never  so 
much  as  referred  to  and  that  the  very  reasons 
which  brought  their  father  and  mother  to- 
gether, made  them  live  together  as  husband 
and  wife,  are  never  even  referred  to?  Even 
in  homes  where  parents  constantly  joke  the 
children  about  their  sweethearts  and  about  get- 
ting married,  the  principles  that  underlie  this 
wonderful,  mysterious  subject  are  never  ex- 
plained, but  unfortunately  the  sex-conscious- 
ness is  morbidly  developed,  and  the  young  peo- 
ple are  left  in  darkness  and  ignorance  to 
wrestle  with  their  instincts  and  passions  as  best 
they  can.  The  boy  and  the  girl  feel  that  they 
must  keep  their  thoughts  concealed  from  every- 
body for  whom  they  have  any  respect,  because 
they  never  hear  those  whom  they  love  and  ad- 
mire referring  to  the  subject.  It  is  only  the 
vicious  and  the  low  who  wiU  talk  about  it  to 
them. 

Now,  when  your  children  ask  questions  upon 
sex  matters,  before  they  have  developed  a  mor- 


The  Crime  of  Silence  33 

bid  self -consciousness  in  regard  to  the  subject, 
why  make  a  mystery  of  it  ?  Why  evade  them 
or  fill  their  minds  with  fables  and  lies?  Why 
not  answer  them  frankly  and  truthfully  ?  They 
will  find  out  the  truth  sooner  or  later,  and  will 
then  think  less  of  you  for  having  deceived  them. 
Furthermore,  when  they  get  this  information 
from  outside,  as  they  are  bound  to  if  parents 
refuse  to  give  it  to  them,  father  or  mother  will 
never  again  be  the  same  confidant  as  before. 
Your  children  will  gradually  drift  away,  and, 
more  or  less,  estrangement  will  gi^ow  up  be- 
tween you. 

Remember  that  the  relation  of  your  child  to 
you  through  its  dependent  years,  when  it  looks 
up  to  you  in  implicit  faith,  is  such  that  he  will 
never  again,  probably,  have  the  same  confi- 
dence in  information  given  by  any  one  else. 
Then  is  your  priceless  opportunity  to  tell  him 
the  straight  truth.  To  refuse  to  guide  him  in 
these  impressionable,  perilous  years  is  as  cruel 
as  it  would  be  to  let  a  blind  man  wander  in  a 
street  which  would  lead  him  into  a  river. 

If  you  can  manage  to  be  such  a  close  confi- 
dant of  your  boy  that  he  will  instinctively  and 
naturally  come  to  you  with  every  question 


34  The  Crime  of  Silence 

which  troubles  him,  and  always  feel  free  to  talk 
over  the  most  intimate  relations  of  his  life  with 
you,  you  will  have  little  to  fear  for  his  future. 
If  you  instil  into  your  child's  mind,  in  such  a 
way  that  it  will  never  be  eradicated,  the  idea 
that  he  should  never  do  anything  which  he 
would  be  ashamed  to  have  his  mother  know  all 
about,  you  have  accomplished  a  wonderful 
thing. 

Most  parents  have  an  idea  that  imparting 
sexual  knowledge  to  children  is  like  brushing 
the  bloom  from  the  peach,  that  it  means  the 
loss  of  early  innocence.  There  could  not  be  a 
greater  mistake.  The  whole  subject  can  be  so 
handled  that  it  will  seem  just  as  natural  to  get 
instruction  on  it  as  on  any  other.  It  can  be 
treated  in  so  pure  and  simple  a  manner  that  a 
child  would  regard  a  filthy  reference  or  low 
joke  in  connection  with  it  as  he  would  an  insult- 
ing jest  regarding  his  mother. 

The  main  thing  in  imparting  siex  instruction 
to  a  boy  and  girl  is  to  do  it  in  a  delicate  as  well 
as  simple  way,  to  avoid  coarseness  and  crudity 
and  every  possibility  of  the  youthful  imagina- 
tion visualizing  pictures  of  sexual  sin. 

Many  well-meaning  writers  who  are  trying 


The  Crime  of  Silence   .  35 

to  help  young  people  to  solve  their  sex  prob- 
lems approach  the  subject  in  such  a  round- 
about, mysterious  manner  that  they  give  the  im- 
pression that  there  really  is  something  to  be 
ashamed  of,  something  which  must  be  con- 
cealed. While  their  motives  are  admirable, 
they  do  more  harm  than  good.  They  make 
the  mistake  that  the  majority  of  grown  people 
make,  in  thinking  that  children  have  deep  or 
involved  thoughts  upon  the  subject.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  nothing  is  farther  from  the 
truth.  Their  ideas  regarding  it  are  very  vague 
and  their  minds  are  very  easily  satisfied;  but 
they  should  be  satisfied  along  the  line  of  truth 
and  not  of  deception. 

Nothing  is  gained  and  much  is  lost  in  deceiv- 
ing a  child  or  misleading  him  with  fables  of  the 
stork  flying  in  the  window  with  the  baby  or  the 
angels  bringing  it  down  from  heaven.  Chil- 
dren, as  a  rule,  think  of  the  matter  in  such 
vague  and  indefinite  terms  as  are  suggested 
in  the  question  which  one  little  fellow  asked  his 
mother,  "Where  was  I  when  there  wasn't  any 
me?"  Now,  as  it  doesn't  take  very  much  to 
satisfy  such  a  child's  curiosity,  why  deceive 
him? — why  mystify  him? — ^why  not,  in  simple, 


36  The  Crime  or  Silence 

chaste  language,  tell  him  the  truth?  It  can  be 
done  in  such  a  delicate  way  as  to  satisfy  his 
mind,  without  in  the  least  distressing  him  or 
robbing  him  of  a  particle  of  his  fresh  innocence. 
Then,  when  he  gets  a  little  older,  when  his  mind 
can  grasp  more  truth,  give  him  more,  but  do 
not  wait  until  too  late  to  give  this  instruction. 
Give  it  to  him  a  little  in  advance  of  his  sexual 
development.  Then  there  will  be  no  danger 
of  developing  a  morbid  imagination,  unchaste 
visualizing.  The  plain  facts,  the  truth,  will 
free  the  young  mind  from  all  morbid  curiosity. 
But,  if  you  begin  by  deceiving  him,  you  have 
got  to  continue;  and,  when  he  hears  the  truth 
in  the  wrong  way  from  some  one  else,  he  loses 
confidence  in  you. 

I  believe  that  the  mother  is  the  safest  link  in 
connecting  young  children  with  this  whole 
mystery  of  sex.  Because  of  her  mother  love, 
superior  tact,  and  marvelous  instinct,  there  is 
little  danger  of  her  startling  or  shocking  the 
awakening  young  mind.  Men,  generally,  are 
more  awkward  in  their  language.  They  lack 
that  delicacy  of  approach,  that  sensitiveness 
of  mental  touch,  that  fine  intuition  which  is 


The  Crime  of  Silence  37 

a  part  of  the  feminine  nature.  To  children, 
especially  when  they  are  still  young,  there  is 
nothing  in  this  world  so  sacred  as  their  mother. 
What  she  says  carries  infinitely  more  weight 
than  what  the  father  or  the  teacher  says. 
When  the  boy  approaches  manhood,  then  the 
father  may  safely  assume  the  office  of  confi- 
dant and  instructor  of  his  son  in  these  matters, 
but  during  his  very  tender  years  the  mother 
should  be  his  guide. 

The  mother,  in  taking  advantage  of  a  favor- 
able opportunity  when  her  boy  is  in  the  right 
affectionate  mood,  can  tell  him  the  scientific 
facts  of  sex  in  such  language  that  no  unnat- 
ural suspicion  or  sensual  suggestion  will  be 
aroused  in  his  mind.  Instead  he  will  take  the 
whole  thing  as  a  matter  of  course.  Perhaps 
one  or  two  little  talks  may  not  only  save  your 
boy  from  untold  misery  or  the  possible  wreck- 
age of  his  whole  life,  but  may  bind  him  to  you 
closer  than  anything  else  that  has  ever  come 
up  between  you.  He  will  ever  after  say  to 
himself,  in  moments  of  temptation,  "My 
mother  told  me  this,"  and  it  will  mean  infinitely 
more  to  him  than  knowledge  obtained  from  any 


38  The  Crime  of  Silence 

other  source.  It  will  bear  the  stamp  of  sa- 
credness,  of  cleanness,  of  purity,  and  save  him 
many  a  pitfall. 

Or  the  whole  question  may  be  simply  and 
naturally  introduced  by  telling  your  child  of 
the  dignity  and  sacredness  of  motherhood. 
If  a  boy  is  properly  instructed  in  regard  to 
this,  and  a  high  ideal  of  womanhood  is  roused 
in  him,  he  can  safely  be  given  the  scientific 
facts  regarding  his  physical  being,  and  the 
natural,  normal  generation  and  reproduction 
of  human  life. 

The  mother  can  explain  the  facts  of  mater- 
nity, the  mystery  of  it  all,  as  no  one  else  can. 
Let  her  impress  the  boy  with  the  sanctity  of 
motherhood,  and  the  awful  sacrifice  which 
every  mother  makes  in  bringing  a  child  into  the 
world.  Let  her  teach  him  that  her  very  suf- 
fering so  intensifies  the  mother's  love  for  her 
child  that  she  would  gladly  give  her  life  to  pro- 
tect it.  This  will  strengthen  his  love  for  his 
mother  and  build  up  his  ideal  of  the  holiness, 
the  beauty  and  the  wonder  of  it  all. 

Beautiful  sex  lessons  can  be  taught  chil- 
dren through  botany  and  zoology.  It  is  not  a 
very  difficult  matter  to  teach  boys  and  girls 


The  Crime  of  Silence  3d 

about  the  marvelous  provision  made  by  Nature 
for  the  reproduction  and  perpetuation  of  life 
in  plants,  in  fishes,  in  the  lower  animals,  and  in 
human  beings.  Begin  with  the  egg,  the  origin 
of  the  chicken,  or  the  fish,  the  metamorphosis 
of  the  insect,  and  the  fertilization  of  plants. 
All  this  will  lead  up  easily  and  naturally  to 
human  reproduction  and  the  natural  instinct 
of  all  animals  for  pairing,  with  the  object  of 
the  perpetuation  of  the  species,  and  how  this 
pairing  in  the  lower  forms  of  life  foreshadows 
the  home. 

The  introduction  of  this  subject  will  give 
the  intelligent  mother  an  opportunity  to  instil 
into  the  mind  of  her  children  lessons  from  the 
evolution  of  life  and  the  progress  of  the  world. 
She  can  go  back  to  the  time  when  there  were  no 
human  beings  on  the  earth,  and  show  her  little 
ones  how  our  highest  specimens  of  manhood 
have  gradually  been  evolved  from  animal 
forms^so  low  as  to  be  scarcely  distinguishable 
from  vegetable  organisms.  She  can  explain 
how  man  has  been  foreshadowed  in  other  forms 
of  life  and  how  Nature  for  millions  of  years 
has  been  evolving  higher  and  higher  organisms 
up  to  the  highest  human  type  of  the  present. 


40  The  Crime  of  Silence 

She  can  picture  to  them  how  man  has  climbed 
from  the  Hottentots  to  the  Gladstones,  the 
Washingtons,  the  Lincolns,  and  fill  their  young 
imagination  with  all  the  wonders  of  evolution. 

Where  the  mother  has  not  been  scientifically 
instructed  in  these  things  herself,  she  can  give 
her  children  all  the  facts  she  knows  in  regard 
to  the  subject  in  a  sweet,  natural  way  which 
will  forewarn  and  safeguard  them  from  a  thou- 
sand perilous  experiences.  When  they  are 
older,  especially  if  the  home  is  in  a  city  or  town, 
where  they  have  the  advantage  of  a  public 
library,  text  books,  giving  elementary  instruc- 
tion on  physiology,  anatomy  and  kindred  sub- 
jects may  be  given  them.  Later,  when  their 
minds  are  thus  prepared,  they  can  be  intro- 
duced to  the  plain  truths  of  sex  physiology,  sex 
anatomy  and  sex  hygiene,  as  presented  by  the 
best  authorities. 

While  giving  this  sex  instruction  and  infor- 
mation the  whole  object  should  be  to  enlarge 
the  children's  horizon,  to  uplift  their  ideas  of 
Nature,  of  law  and  of  religion,  while  at  the 
same  time  instilling  into  their  young  minds  the 
wonder,  the  miracle,  the  sacredness  of  the  mar- 


The  Crime  of  Silence  41 

velous  works  of  God,  especially  of  the  powers 
locked  up  within  themselves. 

Many  of  you  fathers  and  mothers  will  say 
that  the  very  suggestion  that  you  talk  over  sex 
matters  with  your  children  is  repulsive,  that 
these  are  things  that  should  not  be  thought  of 
by  the  young,  to  say  nothing  of  talking  them 
over  with  them ;  that  the  discussion  of  this  sub- 
ject  would  only  fill  their  minds  with  forbidden 
thoughts.  But  let  me  tell  you  that  there  is 
not  a  thousandth  part  the  risk  or  danger  in  tell- 
ing your  boys  and  girls  the  entire  facts  of  their 
own  sexual  life  and  the  miracle  of  reproduction 
that  there  is  in  silence  and  secrecy.  Indeed,  a 
pure  and  scientific  knowledge  of  those  impor- 
tant facts  is  a  protection  against  evil,  against 
morbid  curiosity  and  forbidden  thoughts.  It 
is  ignorance  not  sex  facts  but  imagined  sex  mat- 
ters that  are  dangerous,  perilous;  knowledge 
means  protection,  safety. 

Do  not  make  the  mistake  that  so  many  par- 
ents seem  to  commit  in  taking  ignorance  for 
purity.  Purity  is  in  constant  danger  unless 
it  is  protected  by  the  sort  of  knowledge  that 
will  safeguard  it.     Our  mothers  are  pure,  our 


42  The  Crime  of  Silence 

wives  are  pure,  but  it  is  not  the  purity  of  ig- 
norance. Impurity  is  often  the  result  of  igno- 
rance. 

Few  parents  begin  to  realize  what  the  curi- 
osity of  a  child  means,  and  what  it  will  lead  to 
in  this  matter  if  not  satisfied  in  a  wholesome 
and  normal  manner  by  proper  instruction. 
The  minds  of  children,  as  every  one  knows,  are 
filled  with  interrogation  points  on  all  subjects. 
How  do  you  think  they  can  be  reared  in  a  home 
without  knowing  something  of  the  relation  of 
the  opposite  sexes?  The  manner  of  living  of 
their  father  and  mother,  the  babies  coming  into 
the  home,  and  other  facts  of  life  cannot  be  hid- 
den from  them.  Children  are  not  blind,  and 
they  are  naturally  more  inquisitive  about  those 
things  which  are  purposely  kept  from  them. 

Boys  and  girls  know  that  when  they  arrive 
at  a  certain  age  they  are  kept  apart  for  some 
reason,  that  there  is  a  radical  difference  be- 
tween the  sexes.  They  cannot  understand  the 
reason  for  all  this  silence  and  mystery;  for, 
while  everything  else  is  talked  about,  a  veil  is 
drawn  over  all  sex  matters.  They  wonder 
why  you  stammer  and  blush  whenever  the  sub- 
ject is  broached,  or  try  to  put  them  off  with  all 


The  Crime  of  Silence  43 

sorts  of  indirectness  and  fables,  or  pass  it  over 
in  jest. 

If  the  life  you  are  leading  is  legitimate  and 
right,  if  the  generation  and  perpetuation  of 
life  are  legitimate  and  sacred  things,  why  do 
you  seem  ashamed  of  them?  By  your  silence 
you  appear  to  indicate  that  even  the  best  peo- 
ple in  the  world  are  living  in  a  manner  which  is 
not  right,  and  that  the  Creator  has  decreed  that 
some  functions  of  the  body,  though  necessary, 
are  not  as  sacred  as  others. 

The  whole  training  of  our  children  is  cal- 
culated to  give  them  a  totally  wrong  impres- 
sion of  the  sex  relation.  The  criminal  silence 
of  parents,  together  with  the  unholy,  vulgar 
insinuations  and  suggestions  which  they  absorb 
on  the  street,  in  the  schools,  and  in  all  sorts  of 
places  outside  the  home  tend  to  impress  upon 
children  the  idea  that  there  is  something  not 
only  marvelously  mysterious  about  it,  but  also 
something  unclean  and  wicked.  Then  they  go 
to  church  and  hear  the  exposition  of  the  doc- 
trine that  "we  are  all  conceived  in  sin;"  and, 
putting  this  fact  with  the  mysterious  silence 
of  fathers  and  iriothers,  they  conclude  that 
there  is  something  even  in  the  relation  of  their 


44  The  Crime  of  Silence 

parents  which  must  not  be  alluded  to.  Then, 
as  the  boy  especially  grows  toward  youth  and 
manhood,  he  sees  and  hears  about  the  awful 
degradation  of  the  underworld,  the  sowing  of 
wild  oats,  and  other  impure  things,  all  of  which 
information  only  mystifies  him  more  and  more, 
and  further  stimulates  a  morbid  curiosity  in 
regard  to  all  other  sex  matters. 

Indeed,  one  of  the  worst  things  about  this 
criminal  silence  upon  the  sex  question  is  that 
it  often  makes  the  sex  impulse  itself  the  youth's 
teacher,  by  arousing  an  insistent  desire  for 
light  regarding  this  wonderful  mystery;  and 
he  resorts  to  all  sorts  of  questionable  sources, 
impure  associates,  books  and  pictures  which 
appeal  to  the  vile  and  vicious  in  human  nature 
to  get  the  information  he  craves.  He  is  thus 
led  to  listen  to  low,  vulgar  insinuations  and  in- 
nuendoes, which  would  simply  disgust  him  if  he 
had  had  clean,  scientific  knowledge  on  the  sub- 
ject. Not  being  safeguarded  in  a  sane,  whole- 
some way,  his  inflamed  imagination  runs  away 
with  him,  and  before  he  realizes  it  he  is  plunged 
into  the  very  vice  which  would  instinctively 
have  repelled  him  had  he  been  properly  posted. 

Had  all  children  had  clean,  pure  instruction 


The  Crime  of  Silence  45 

upon  this  wonderful  and  sacred  subject  from 
the  start,  this  morbid,  vulgar  side  of  it  which 
permeates  the  very  atmosphere  of  all  vile 
places  would  never  have  developed. 

Many  a  youth,  when  he  begins  to  study 
medicine,  has  a  lot  of  morbid  sex  curiosity; 
but,  when  he  goes  into  the  dissecting  room  and 
becomes  familiar  with  the  great  truths  of  anat- 
omy and  physiology,  when  he  realizes  the  mar- 
velousness  of  the  human  machine,  with  all 
its  complex  functions,  the  facts  of  life  become 
sacred  to  him.  Morbid  curiosity  vanishes  be- 
fore the  light  of  science.  Distorted  informa- 
tion has  no  more  attractions  for  him,  because 
he  has  seen  into  the  very  holy  of  holies  of 
human  life. 

Is  it  not  time  that  we  treat  it  in  a  scientific 
way,  that  we  turn  on  the  light  on  this  whole 
question?  Is  it  not  time  that  we  put  a  stop  to 
the  discrediting  of  marriage,  the  most  sacred 
of  all  human  relations,  and  give  our  children 
pure  information  in  place  of  the  impure ;  scien- 
tific facts  in  the  place  of  distorted  knowledge, 
knowledge  which  tends  to  arouse  morbid  curi- 
osity? The  whole  subject  has  been  kept  too 
long  in  the  dark.     Evil  thrives  in  darkness,  in 


46  The  Crime  of  Silence 

ignorance.  Light  and  knowledge  are  their 
antidotes.  They  will  clean  up  the  foulest  of 
human  cesspools. 

It  may  be  hard  for  you  to  overcome  tradi- 
tional custom  and  tell  your  boys  and  girls  the 
truth  about  their  own  bodies,  but  ignorance  of 
the  subject  may  prove  fatal.  Their  future  de- 
pends upon  their  being  properly  instructed  on 
these  tabooed  questions  during  the  dangerous 
years  when  special  temptations  will  come  to 
them,  and  when  they  will  need  all  the  protec- 
tion which  the  wisdom  of  your  riper  years  and 
wider  knowledge  of  human  nature  enables  you 
to  give  them.  Let  them  profit  by  your  mis- 
takes and  any  unfortunate  experiences  that 
may  have  come  to  you  from  ignorance  in  youth. 

The  question  whether  instruction  in  sex  hy- 
giene should  be  given  in  public  schools  is  a 
burning  one  just  now.  We  find  teachers,  col- 
lege professors  and  clergymen  ranged  in  op- 
posite camps. 

Professor  Hugo  Munsterberg,  of  Harvard 
University,  says:  "The  cleanest  boys  and 
girls  cannot  give  theoretical  attention  to  their 
thoughts  concerning  sexuality  without  the 
whole  mechanism  for  re-inf orcement  automati- 


The  Crime  of  Silence  47 

cally  entering  into  action.  We  may  instruct 
with  the  best  intention  to  suppress,  and  yet  our 
instruction  itself  must  become  a  source  of 
stimulation,  which  unnecessarily  creates  the 
desire  for  improper  conduct." 

Mrs.  Ella  Flagg  Young,  superintendent  of 
the  public  schools  of  Chicago,  on  the  other 
hand,  says  that  their  experiment  in  sex  instruc- 
tion in  the  schools  of  Chicago  has  increased 
the  girls'  sense  of  their  own  dignity  and  the 
marvelous    meaning    of    their    nature.     The 
knowledge  they  are  acquiring  is  taking  the 
place  of  the  silly  ignorance  which  so  long  has 
been  regarded  as  innocence,  and  the  girls  hold 
their  heads  higher  and  seem  to  think  more  of 
themselves.     They  have   greater  respect   for 
their  own  bodies. 
,       Only  a  short  time  ago  the  teaching  of  sex 
)  hygiene  in  Sunday  Schools  was  approved  in 
1  the  report  to  the  convention  of  the  Interna- 
I   tional  Sunday  School  Association  by  E.  K. 
I  Mohr,  Superintendent  of  the  Purity  Depart- 
l!  ment. 

i  "Sex  knowledge  will  be  taught,"  said  Mr. 
I  Mohr.  "If  not  in  the  homes  and  the  Sunday 
I  School,  it  will  be  taught  in  the  street.     Silence 


48  The  Crime  of  Silence 

is  criminal.  We  cannot  remain  inactive.  We 
must  teach  these  facts  and  teach  them  right, 
so  that  knowledge  may  lead  to  purity  and 
righteousness. 

"With  the  new  awakening  and  discussion  of 
sex  matters,  the  pendulum  has  swung  from  si- 
lence to  publicity  that  is  almost  nauseating. 
Literature,  the  stage,  the  newspapers,  the 
'movies'  have  exploited  the  interest  in  the  sub- 
ject. The  endeavor  to  avoid  false  modesty 
may  in  the  end  break  down  the  barriers  of  real 
modesty. 

"With  the  religious  atmosphere  and  rever- 
ent receptive  attitude  of  the  Sunday  School, 
it  is  eminently  fitted  to  bear  the  message  of 
the  knowledge  that  tends  to  personal  purity. 
It  is  the  plainest  religious  strategy." 

I  once  knew  a  man  of  liberal  education 
who,  from  being  an  honored  member  of  a  col- 
lege faculty,  had  been  dragged  slowly  down 
by  the  practice  of  self-abuse  until  he  had  no 
decided  opinions  on  any  subject  of  importance. 
He  dropped,  too,  in  the  grade  and  character 
of  the  work  he  could  and  would  do  until  he 
became  and  continued  for  a  few  years  the 
caretaker  of  the  lavatories  in  a  large  hotel. 


The  Crime  of  Silence  49 

Professor  Henry,  the  bell  boys  called  him,  half 
in  derision,  half  in  respect  for  his  evident  in- 
herent ability.  Death  finally  closed  his  career 
in  almost  total  mental  vacuity.  He  had  ac- 
quired the  habit  unwarned,  as  a  boy;  and, 
though  it  had  been  of  slow  growth  for  a  few 
years,  during  which  he  climbed  upward  in  life, 
it  finally  conquered  and  destroyed  him. 

It  is  a  strange  fact  that  many  of  the. most 
highly  educated  and  cultivated  people  are  still 
reluctant  to  sanction  even  the  discussion  of  sex 
life,  except  in  medical  circles.  Teachers  are 
seriously  handicapped  by  parents'  reticence; 
and,  even  while  teachers  feel  that  they  could 
materially  help  the  children,  they  hesitate  to  in- 
troduce the  subject;  whereas,  if  they  knew  that 
they  were  backed  by  the  parents,  they  could 
do  a  great  deal.  I  believe,  however,  that  the 
time  will  come  when  sex  instruction  will  be 
given  in  our  schools,  in  connection  with  biology, 
hygiene,  and  ethics,  and  the  evolution  of  the 
whole  subject  will  be  as  natural  and  normal 
as  that  of  any  other  study.  I  believe  that  no 
student  should  be  allowed  to  graduate  from 
college,  or  any  other  of  our  higher  institutions 
of  learning  without  passing  a  satisfactory  ex- 


50  The  Crime  of  Silence 

amination  upon  the  nature  and  meaning  of  the 
sexual  instincts,  so  that  the  young  man  may  be 
fitted  to  fulfill  the  holy  office  of  husband  and 
father,  and  the  young  woman  the  sacred  office 
of  wife  and  mother. 

Some  of  the  women's  clubs  in  America  are 
doing  excellent  work  in  providing  courses  for 
mothers  and  teachers ;  and,  apart  from  the  sen- 
sational exploitations  of  vice,  there  is  an  ever- 
increasing  movement  for  the  dissemination  of 
wholesome  knowledge  on  this  most  important 
of  all  matters  touching  the  welfare  of  the  race. 

This  movement  is  not  confined  to  any  par- 
ticular locality  or  nationality.  It  is  sweeping 
with  irresistible  force  over  the  entire  civilized 
world.  It  promises  to  tear  off  from  society 
its  mask  of  prudery  and  false  modesty  and  to 
start  youths  and  maidens  out  in  life  with 
pure,  clean,  scientific  knowledge  of  their  o 
bodies  which  will  safeguard  their  health,  their 
homes  and  future  families.  I  believe  that  this 
universal  campaign  of  sex  hygiene  is  destined 
to  bring  more  good  to  the  human  race  than  any 
other  movement  of  modem  times. 


to    M 
wi^l 


CHAPTER  III 

"dangerous  passing" 

We  paint,  ourselves,  the  joy,  the  fear 

Of  which  the  coming  life  is  made. 
And  fill  our  future's  atmosphere 

With  sunshine  or  with  shade; 
The  tissue  of  the  life  to  be. 

We  weave  with  colors  all  our  own ; 
And,  in  the  field  of  destiny, 

We  reap  as  we  have  sown. — J.  G.  Whittier. 

So  close  does  falsehood  approach  to  truth  that  the  wise  man 
would  do  well  not  to  trust  himself  on  the  narrow  edge. 

— CiCEEO. 

A  POLICE  inspector,  in  an  address  before 
New  York  public  school  graduates,  said: 
"I  have  just  come  from  the  Tombs,  where 
I  closed  the  gates  behind  a  wealthy  mur- 
derer. I  want  to  tell  you,  young  men,  that 
ninety-nine  per  cent,  of  the  crimes  committed 
to-day  are  caused  by  evil  companions." 

Familiarity  with  vulgarity  tends  to  make  us 
vulgar.  Familiarity  wiH;h  evil,  with  immoral- 
ity, robs  it  of  its  hideousness.     What  we  have 

51 


52  The  Crime  of  Silence 

become  accustomed  to,  we  first  give  our  con- 
sent to,  then  our  approval.  Those  who  asso- 
ciate with  vile  characters  tend  to  become  vile. 

Investigation  has  shown  that  a  very  large 
percentage  of  those  who  have  strayed  from  the 
path  of  virtue  began  their  downfall  through 
the  fatal  contagion  of  impurity  communicated 
from  vicious  associates. 

One  who  has  made  a  special  study  of  the  ef- 
fect of  immorality  upon  men  says  that  impure 
thought  suggested  by  evil  associates  is  one  of 
the  earliest  indications  of  the  downfall  of  char- 
acter. He  affirms  that  ninety-five  per  cent,  of 
the  men  and  boys  in  factories  and  places  of 
manual  labor  boast  of  tlueir  impurity. 

This  seems  an  appalling  statement,  but  it  is 
supplemented  by  that  of  another  investigator 
who  says,  "Seventy-five  to  eighty  per  cent,  of 
men  have,  before  marriage,  been  infected  with 
some  form  of  venereal  disease."  He  adds  that 
the  truth  of  this  "is  widely  accepted  by  medical 
authorities." 

Under  such  conditions  as  these  it  is  not  diffi- 
cult to  imagine  the  danger  of  youth  from  im- 
pure associations-.  Even  clean,  innocent,  beau- 
tifully reared  children,  who  seem  so  pure  that 


"Dangerous  Passing''  58 

nothing  can  contaminate  them,  are  touched  by 
the  leper  spot  of  vicious  contagion  when  thrown 
into  bad  company,  as  the  soundest  and  rosiest 
apples  are  soon  infected  when  in  contact  with 
other  apples  which  have  begun  to  decay. 

Impure  suggestion  is  a  youth's  worst  enemy. 
After  an  impure  thought  has  once  taken  hold 
of  the  mind  it  requires  strong  will  power  to 
control  one's  desires.  The  trouble  begins  with 
the  thought;  hence  the  imperative  importance 
of  keeping  with  pure  people,  keeping  in  a  pure, 
wholesome  atmosphere,  reading  clean  litera- 
ture, because  evil  associations  awaken  forbid- 
den inclinations.  The  suggestions  of  bad 
companions  visualize  the  strongest  temptations, 
and  greatly  increase  the  dangers  that  surround 
youth  and  innocence. 

A  boy  who  chooses  for  companions  those 
who  are  already  corrupted,  who  sneer  at  virtue, 
whose  ideals  are  low  flying,  who  actually  boast 
of  their  impurity,  can  not  escape  the  pollution 
that  invariably  results  from  such  associations. 
"Evil  communications  corrupt  good  manners," 
says  a  well-known  proverb.  Even  more  do 
they  corrupt  good  morals.  On  the  other  hand, 
just  as  surely  does  the  boy  who  selects  his 


54  The  Crime  of  Silence 

friends  among  those  who  are  clean,  whole- 
some, pure-minded,  who  aims  to  be  somebody 
and  to  do  something  in  the  world,  who  has  no 
secret  companions  to  whom  he  would  not  in- 
troduce his  sister  or  his  mother, — just  as  surely 
does  such  a  boy  incline  toward  all  that  is  noble, 
pure,  and  uplifting. 

There  is  as  strong  an  affinity  between  evil 
things  as  between  good  things.  All  forms  of 
dissipation  belong  to  the  same  family,  and 
there  is  a  strong  probability,  amounting  almost 
to  certainty,  that  the  boy  who  is  introduced  to 
a  single  vicious  practice  by  evil  companions 
will  be  initiated  into  the  whole  family  of  evil 
things. 

Judges  in  children's  courts  tell  us  that 
nearly  every  boy  who  goes  wrong  begins  with 
smoking  cigarettes.  While  we  know  that  thou- 
sands of  men  who  smoke  are  pure  and  clean  in 
their  lives,  yet  it  is  a  fact  that  learning  to  smoke 
is  usually  a  boy's  initiation  into  wrongdoing. 
Smoking  has  a  much  more  demoralizing  influ- 
ence upon  a  boy,  because  of  his  immaturity, 
than  upon  a  man.  This  is  especially  true  if 
he  learns  to  smoke  during  the  dangerous  years 
of  puberty,  when  he  already  has  all  the  natural 


"Dangerous  Passing"  55 

temptations  which  he  Is  able  to  withstand.  Al- 
though it  is  not  as  vicious  in  its  influence  as  in- 
toxicating drinks,  yet  somehow  nicotine,  espe- 
cially in  youth,  is  very  often  the  entering  wedge 
which  opens  the  door  to  alcohol,  other  deadly 
drugs,  and  sexual  sins.  All  bad  things  seem 
to  be  hnked  together.  All  forms  of  dissipa- 
tion, vice,  and  crime  go  hand  in  hand.  Their 
affinity  draws  them  together.  This  is  what 
makes  it  so  difficult  to  reform  a  person  when 
he  is  started  downhill,  just  as  the  affinity  of  all 
that  is  good  and  pure  and  clean  tends  to  draw 
a  man  up  when  he  is  going  in  that  direction, 
when  he  is  trained  with  the  family  of  good  in- 
fluences. 

Somebody  has  said  that  the  common  expres- 
sion "They  all  do  it"  is  the  devil's  other  name. 
Innumerable  life  tragedies  have  resulted  from 
the  suggestion  of  "they  all  do  it."  Young 
people  have  a  morbid  dread  of  refusing  to  dp 
the  things  their  companions  do,  even  when  they 
know  they  are  wrong.  Trying  to  be  a  good 
fellow,  to  do  as  "the  other  fellows"  did  has 
proved  the  gateway  to  ruin  for  many  a  boy. 
How  many  youths  are  ashamed  to  refuse  to 
smoke  a  cigarette,  or  a  cigar,  or  to  "take  a 


56  The  Crime  of  Silence 

drink,"  because  their  companions  think  it  is 
manly  to  smoke  and  drink. 

It  is  true  that  it  often  takes  a  great  deal  of 
courage  for  a  youth  to  refuse  to  yield  to  temp- 
tation, to  rebuke  impurity  or  vulgarity,  or  to 
show  his  disgust  and  disapprobation  of  an  im- 
pure suggestion  or  a  questionable  story.  He 
fears  the  ridicule  of  his  companions.  But  the 
moral  bravery  that  frowns  on  such  things  is 
the  strongest  proof  of  real  manliness,  and  wins 
the  admiration  even  of  those  who  laugh  and 
jeer  at  it. 

I  remember  a  young  man  who  had  been  ap- 
pointed to  an  important  position  and  who  was 
given  a  "send-off"  by  his  young  friends.  At 
the  dinner  in  his  honor  questionable  stories  and 
suggestions  were  repeated.  Toasts  had  been 
drunk  to  girls  with  whom  4ome  of  the  young 
men  had  improper  relations,  when  the  guest  of 
the  evening  was  asked  to  speak.  He  raised 
his  glass  and  said:  "I  diink  a  toast  to  my 
mother!"  This  pointed  rebuke  put  an  end  to 
all  the  questionable  proceedings. 

As  some  perverted  tastey  develop  a  prefer- 
ence for  tainted  meats,  so  many  men  seem  to 
prefer  a  tainted  story,  a  tainted  book,  a  tainted 


"Dangerous  Passing"  57 

picture,  a  vulgar  joke,  or  a  low,  foul  insinua- 
tion. Their  diseased  imaginations  revel  in 
filth,  until  they  lose  their  taste  entirely  for  the 
sweet,  the  pure,  the  beautiful,  the  normal. 

When  boys  lose  their  love  and  appreciation 
for  clean  humor  and  laugh  at  impure  stories 
and  coarse  vulgar  suggestions  and  jokes,  it  is  a 
pretty  sure  indication  that  they  are  in  danger, 
that  they 'have  been  sexually  contaminated, 
and  have  formed  vicious  associations  or  habits. 
People  who  tell  immoral  stories  and  revel  in 
vulgar  innuendoes  are  on  the  downward  track. 

"A  great  trait  of  Grant's  character,"  said 
George  W.  Childs,  'Vas  his  purity.  I  never 
heard  him  express  an  impure  thought,  or  make 
an  indelicate  allusion.  There  is  nothing  I  ever 
heard  him  say  that  could  not  be  repeated  in 
the  presence  of  women.  When  President,  if 
a  man  was  brought  up  for  an  appointment,  and 
it  was  shown  that  he  was  an  immoral  man. 
Grant  would  not  appoint  him,  no  matter  how 
great  the  pressure  brought  to  bear."  Many 
instances  characteristic  of  the  great  general's 
answer  to  impure  stories  are  on  record.  On 
one  occasion,  when  he  formed  one  of  a  dinner- 
party of  American  gentlemen  in  a  foreign  city. 


58  The  Crime  of  Silence 

conversation  drifted  to  questionable  matters, 
when  he  suddenly  rose  and  said,  "Gentlemen, 
please  excuse  me ;  I  will  retire." 

"I  have  such  a  rich  story  that  I  want  to  tell 
you,"  said  an  officer  who,  one  evening  during 
the  Civil  War,  came  into  the  Union  camp  in  a 
rollicking  mood.  "There  are  no  ladies  pres- 
ent, are  there?"  General  Grant,  lifting  his 
eyes  from  the  paper  which  he  was  reading,  and 
looking  the  officer  squarely  in  the  eye,  said, 
slowly  and  deliberately:  ''No,  hut  there  are 
gentlemen  present/' 

A  manly  man  is  Nature's  gentleman,  the 
only  true  gentleman,  and  he  will  no  more  pol- 
lute his  lips  by  repeating  an  impure  story  or 
joke  than  will  Nature's  gentlewoman,  a  wom- 
anly woman.  Neither  will  associate  with,  or 
make  companions  of  those  who  take  pleasure 
in  such  things,  who  delight  in  what  is  gross, 
low,  immoral. 

You  can  not  touch  pitch  without  being  de- 
filed. You  can  not  associate  with  the  impure 
without  catching  the  taint  of  their  impurity, 
their  sensualism,  their  lust,  poisons  which  act 
like  a  leaven  in  the  whole  nature.  The  mind, 
responding   to   the   law   of   suggestion,    soon 


"Dangerous  Passing"  59 

adopts  what  it  is  familiar  with ;  and,  before  you 
realize  it,  you  fall  into  the  vicious  practices  of 
your  companions.  This  is  one  of  the  dangers 
of  college  life,  of  being  led  into  false  paths  by 
youths  who  are  morally  tainted,  but  who  have 
brilliant  or  magnetic  qualities  that  draw  others 
to  them,  or  by  the  large  class  of  wealthy  stu- 
dents, rotten  at  the  core,  who  have  made  some  ^ 
of  our  institutions  of  learning  hotbeds  of  dissi-  r 
pation. 

In  order  to  be  safe  from  moral  contagion, 
one  must  as  far  as  possible  keep  away  from 
temptation,  away  from  people,  from  books, 
from  pictures,  from  places,  from  anything 
which  can  possibly  suggest  a  particle  of  impur- 
ity. Then  the  battle  for  self-control,  for  the 
mastery  of  unruly  passions,  will  be  an  easy  one. 
There  is  nothing  to  be  gained  by  putting  your- 
self in  a  position  where  you  will  be  constantly 
straining  your  self-control,  straining  your  will 
power,  which  may  be  weak,  where  you  will  be 
continually  fighting  against  vicious  sugges- 
tions. A  youth  who  keeps  his  mind  absolutely 
pure  has  the  whip  hand  over  his  passions.  It 
is  the  impure  thought  that  irritates,  that  gen- 
erates the  secretions  which  produce  the  passion. 


60  The  Crime  of  Silence 

As  long  as  the  thought  is  pure  the  body  will 
take  care  of  itself. 

Every  impure  thought  or  experience  affects 
the  whole  body  through  the  mind.  A  sensual 
thought  makes  a  sensual,  beastly  body.  A 
person  who  practices  impurity  doesn't  realize 
that  he  is  brutalizing  his  body,  sensualizing  his 
mind,  vulgarizing  his  own  nature;  that,  after 
a  time,  everybody  who  comes  in  contact  with 
him  feels  his  animalism.  No  one  can  success- 
fully cover  up  the  taint  of  continued  impurity. 
Nor  can  he  resist  its  mental  ravages.  While 
the  mental  faculties  become  weaker  and 
weaker,  the  passions  become  stronger  and  more 
inflamed  and  goad  the  weak  will  on  to  excesses 
which  result  in  terrible  demoralization,  degen- 
eration of  both  the  physical  and  the  moral  be- 
ing. 

We  are  so»xonstructed  that  everything  that 
is  worth  while,  everything  that  we  prize  most, 
everything  that  elevates,  costs  us  something. 
We  must  pay  for  it  in  effort,  and  it  is  precious 
in  proportion  to  the  struggles  and  the  sacrifices 
which  we  make  to  obtain  it.  A  youth  who 
would  keep  himself  "unspotted  from  the 
world,"  especially  a  city  youth,  must  be  con- 


"Dangerous  Passing"  61 

stantly  on  his  guard  against  the  snares  and 
temptations  which  surround  him. 

*'Look  out!  Paint!"  wrote  the  keeper  of  a 
beer  garden  on  a  large  card  which  he  tacked  up 
at  the  entrance  to  his  premises.  But  he  was 
a  poor  penman,  his  rude  "P"  looked  for  all  the 
world  like  a  "T,"  and  those  who  saw  it  read, 
"Look  out!  Taint!"  Yet  it  was  a  most  ap- 
propriate notice,  for  the  danger  from  taint 
within  was  far  greater  than  from  paint  with- 
out. Look  out,  young  man;  beware,  young 
woman,  before  you  enter  such  places.  Only 
too  often,  whole  lives  are  tainted  therein  as 
badly  as  one  rotting  vegetable  taints  others 
around  it. 

In  the  alleys,  the  byways,  the  closed  streets 
of  our  cities  we  often  see  the  sign,  "Dangerous 
Passing."  Although  not  in  written  characters, 
we  can  see  this  sign  all  along  the  pathway  of 
life.  We  read  it  over  the  street  and  avenue 
that  leads  to  vice  and  degradation;  we  read  it 
over  doors  that  lead  to  saloons  and  gambling 
hells,  and  dens  of  infamy.  We  read  it  in  front 
of  all  the  pleasures  which  are  forbidden  or 
doubtful. 

"Dangerous  Passing."    We  read  it  in  thq 


62  The  Crime  of  Silence 

deformed  and  crippled  lives  of  those  who  have 
disregarded  its  warning,  in  the  botched,  de- 
moralized and  bungling  work  of  the  weak  and 
inefficient.  We  read  it  in  the  ruined  lives  and 
lost  opportunities  and  blighted  hopes  of  those 
who  would  not  heed  it.  We  see  it  in  all  those 
who  lead  irregular  or  dissipated  lives,  who  ex- 
haust their  vitality  in  youth.  We  read  it  in 
nervous  wrecks,  in  brain  trouble,  insanity. 
We  read  it  in  the  hesitating  step,  in  the  wrin- 
kles of  the  prematurely  old,  in  those  who  carry 
about  in  their  bodies  unmistakable  signs  which 
are  the  results  of  not  heeding  the  warning, 
"Dangerous  Passing." 

Be  careful  how  you  disregard  the  danger 
sign  which  Nature  puts  up,  her  warning  of  the 
"dangerous  passing"  place  where  justice,  for- 
giveness, mercy  and  even  love  are  left  behind. 


CHAPTER  IV 


"a  little  deyil  to  play  with" 


'Tis  life,  not  death  for  which  we  pant: 
'Tis  life,  whereof  our  nerves  are  scant; 
More  life  and  fuller  that  we  want. 

— Alfred  Tennyson. 

"Mother^  if  I'm  not  naughty;  if  I  am  really 
a  very  good  boy,  will  God  let  me  have  just  one 
little  devil  to  play  with  when  I  go  to  Heaven?" 

This  question  was  put  to  his  mother  by  a 
little  fellow  of  five.  To  a  student  of  child  life 
it  is  more  pathetic  than  funny,  signifying,  as  it 
does,  that  the  idea  of  real  happiness,  joy,  and 
freedom  from  restraint  was  associated  in  the 
mind  of  this  child  with  evil. 

It  is  possible  to  so  train  children  that  vice 
will  seem  attractive  and  virtue  undesirable.  In 
multitudes  of  homes  they  are  brought  up  on 
goody-goody  philosophy,  to  the  entire  exclu- 
sion of  all  the  natural  instincts  of  childhood. 
Not  only  does  this  sort  of  training  not  appeal 
to  the  children,  but  it  prejudices  them  against 

63 


64  The  Crime  of  Silence 

the  very  things  which  the  philosophy  is  sup- 
posed to  inculcate. 

Nor  is  this  inclination  toward  evil,  as  sparks 
fly  upward,  confined  only  to  the  young. 
There  is  a  strange  element  of  perversity  in  all 
human  nature  which  often  impels  us  to  do  the 
very  things  we  know  in  our  heart  of  hearts  may 
be  bad  for  us, — ^may  be  even  fatal  for  us.  This 
it  is  which  impels  and  seems  almost  irresistibly 
to  force  some  people  standing  on  the  brink 
of  a  precipice  to  throw  themselves  over.  Said 
a  highly  educated,  moral,  mature  lady  once  at 
the  French  court,  as  she  held  to  the  light  a 
glass  of  pure,  sparkling  water,  "Oh,  if  it  were 
only  wicked  to  drink  this,  how  nice  it  would 
be!" 

It  is  idle  to  say,  however  true,  that  people 
should  themselves  conquer  all  such  inclinations 
and  ideas.  It  is  also  incumbent  upon  us,  who 
are  supposedly  superior  to  all  such  weaknesses, 
to  help  keep  them  away  from  the  brink  of  such 
a  precipice. 

You  cannot  bring  children  up  on  the  husks 
of  righteousness,  and  the  very  essence  of  the 
religion  of  childhood,  of  all  religion,  is  joy, 
gladness,    cheerfulness,    bubbling,    optimistic 


"A  Little  Devil  to  Play  With"    65 

life.  Theology  doesn't  appeal  to  children,  but 
life  does ;  Nature  does ;  all  the  beautiful  things 
the  Creator  has  given  us  for  use  and  enjoy- 
ment fill  the  heart  of  a  child  with  gladness. 

"I  am  so  full  of  happiness,"  said  one  in  a 
spontaneous  outburst  of  joy,  "that  I  could  not 
be  any  happier  unless  I  could  grow." 

As  a  rule  the  happiest  children  make  not  only 
the  happiest,  but  also  the  most  useful  men  and 
women.  We  cannot  give  children  too  much 
real  fun,  too  much  heart  sunshine,  too  much 
love.  They  thrive  on  such  things.  They  are 
their  normal  food,  and  the  home  is  the  place 
above  all  others  where  they  should  get  an 
abundance  of  them. 

Yet  in  many  families  the  children  are  hungry 
for  affection,  as  well  as  for  amusement;  but 
they  get  no  encouragement;  their  play-loving 
instincts  are  constantly  suppressed.  They  get 
no  pleasure  at  home,  no  love  from  their  par- 
ents, and  they  naturally  seek  these  things  else- 
where. I  have  known  boys  to  go  to  the  bad 
because  their  policeman  parents  put  them  un- 
der too  strict  surveillance.  While  unwilling 
to  let  them  play  and  have  a  good  time  at  home, 
they  were  so  afraid  they  would  get  with  bad 


66  The  Crime  of  Silence 

boys  and  hear  something  that  would  contami- 
nate them  that  they  kept  them  shut  up  in  the 
house,  or  in  their  own  yards,  until  the  young- 
sters rebelled  and  took  advantage  of  every  op- 
portunity to  get  away  and  find  "just  one  little 
devil  to  play  with."  And  because  they  were 
denied  the  chance  for  self-expression  that  every 
normal  child  demands  and  requires,  they  found 
not  one,  indeed,  but  many  little  devils  to  play 
with! 

There  is  a  certain  mysterious,  subtle  fascina- 
tion in  wrongdoing  which  cannot  be  explained, 
but  it  is  something  that  especially  appeals  to 
children  and  young  people  who  have  been  sup- 
pressed, over-guarded,  over-watched  by  par- 
ents or  guardians.  Their  curiosity  is  strength- 
ened by  repression,  and  they  are  constantly 
wanting  to  see  what  the  forbidden  things  are 
hke. 

If  children  are  allowed  to  give  vent  to  all 
that  is  joyous  and  happy  and  spontaneous  in 
their  natures;  if  they  are  not  continually  re- 
pressed by  "don'ts"  in  regard  to  legitimate 
things,  the  things  they  ought  to  have,  they  will 
be  much  less  likely  to  be  attracted  to  those  that 
are  forbidden,  and  they  will  be  infinitely  more 


"A  Little  Devil  to  Play  With"      67 

likely  to  blossom  out  into  helpful  men  and 
women,  instead  of  becoming  suppressed  and 
sad-faced,  if  not  depraved,  individuals.  Chil- 
dren who  are  encouraged  in  self-expression 
through  their  play  instinct  will  not  only  make 
much  more  normal  human  beings  but  will  also 
make  better  business  men,  better  professional 
men,  better  citizens,  better  men  and  women 
generally.  They  will  succeed  better  and  have 
a  nobler  influence  in  the  world.  Joy  and  fun 
are  great  developers,  calling  out  our  richest  re- 
sources, educating  our  finest  powers. 

It  is  self-expression  that  develops  power 
along  moral  as  well  as  mental  and  physical 
lines.  If  one  is  constantly  repressed,  his  facul- 
ties will  be  stifled  and  his  moral  nature  will 
also  suffer.  Repression  causes  arrested  devel- 
opment in  more  children  than  almost  anything 
else.  There  must  be  freedom,  a  sense  of  lib- 
erty for  self-expression,  otherwise  the  mind 
will  not  give  up  its  best,  the  body  will  be 
stunted,  and  the  whole  being  will  be  impover- 
ished. 

A  poor  boy  who  had  been  taken  from  the 
slums  to  a  boys'  farm  home,  and  who  had  been 
told  all  his  life  that  he  was  good-for-nothing, 


68  The  Crime  of  Silence 

said  to  the  other  boys :  "I  dunno  nothin'  and 
I  alius  did.  My  parents  alius  tole  me  I  wuz 
nobody  and  never  would  be." 

Physicians  tell  us  that  the  sexual  plagues 
which  curse  so  many  youths  are  often  due  to 
lack  of  proper  physical  exercise  and  play. 
Boys  like  this  little  lad  who  have  no  boyhood, 
who  are  brought  up  to  work,  who  have  very 
little  or  no  play  in  their  hves,  who  do  not  have 
an  outlet  for  their  fun-loving  propensities,  are 
very  much  more  apt  to  fall  into  vicious  sexual 
habits  than  those  who  have  plenty  of  whole- 
some exercise  and  fun. 

There  is  nothing  else  so  helpful  to  the  nor- 
mal development  of  the  sexual  life  as  a  lot  of 
play  and  fun  and  plenty  of  physical  exercise 
of  a  vigorous  sort,  such  as  boxing,  wrestling, 
football,  baseball,  rowing,  running,  etc.  All 
these  things  are  splendid  for  boys  and  give 
them  a  wholesome  outlet  for  their  energies, 
which  is  extremely  important,  especially  be- 
tween the  ages  of  twelve  and  twenty. 

Boys  who  have  a  great  deal  of  healthful, 
wholesome  exercise  out  of  doors  with  good  as- 
sociates, boys  who  retire  so  healthily  tired  that 
they  fall  asleep  almost  as  soon  as  their  heads 


"A  Little  Devil  to  Play  With"      69 

touch  their  pillows,  and  who  are  encouraged  to 
rise  immediately  when  they  first  awake  are 
not  likely  to  become  victims  of  vicious  habits. 

When  a  youth  has  complete  self-expression, 
when  he  has  all  the  play  and  fun  which  his  na- 
ture demands:  when  he  runs  and  plays  to  his 
heart's  content  in  the  open  air,  there  is  little 
danger  of  pent-up  longings  and  desires  finding 
outlet  in  forbidden  ways.  But  the  moment 
he  is  suppressed,  forbidden  normal  exercise 
out-of-doors  and  housed  too  closely,  his  abnor- 
mal appetites  come  into  ascendency,  and,  not 
having  been  trained  in  self-mastery,  he  often 
becomes  the  prey  of  evil  suggestions  and  temp- 
tations. 

Pent-up  desires  and  passions,  like  volcanoes, 
when  they  are  stifled,  will  break  out  somewhere. 

One  reason  why  many  youths  go  wrong  is 
because  they  are  not  given  sufficient  outlet  for 
their  pent-up  energies,  their  activities  are 
limited.  They  have  no  proper  childhood. 
They  do  not  have  enough  fun,  enough  ro- 
mance ;  their  homes  are  too  serious. 

Mothers  are  often  terribly  shocked  by  the 
development  of  what  they  regard  as  the  sudden 
depravity  of  their  daughters,  who  run  away 


70  The  Crime  of  Silence 

with  men,  or  are  otherwise  led  astray.  They 
seem  to  think  that  the  sudden  lapse  is  quite 
unaccountable,  but  we  notice  that  these  things 
happen  oftenest  in  straightlaced  homes,  where 
the  girls  have  been  over-chaperoned,  over-pro- 
tected, suppressed,  repressed,  and  hedged  in  at 
every  point.  Such  a  hfe  is  not  normal  for 
healthy,  active  girls.  Their  boundless  ener- 
gies must  have  an  outlet ;  and,  if  they  are  not 
allowed  a  natural  one,  they  will  force  one  in 
some  unforeseen,  unfortunate  direction.  If 
these  girls  had  been  given  more  freedom,  if 
they  had  been  thrown  more  upon  their  own  re- 
sponsibihty,  their  good  behavior,  they  would 
have  developed  more  character,  more  will 
power,  more  common  sense  and  moral  fiber. 
It  is  a  great  injustice  to  a  girl  to  bring  her  up 
in  a  glass  case,  shielded  from  every  rough  wind, 
not  allowed  any  freedom  of  expression,  to 
bring  her  up  in  such  a  way  that  she  is  likely  to 
become  an  easy  prey  to  evil  masculine  influ- 
ences. 

A  girl  should  be  so  reared  and  trained  as  to 
be  always  strong  and  vigorous,  self-reliant,] 
able  to  judge  for  herself,  and  to  be  independent] 
at  all  stages  of  her  growth.     The  soft,  flabby,: 


"A  Little  Devil  to  Play  With"      71 

characterless  girl  who  has  been  over-protected 
and  over-watched,  when  she  attains  her  ma- 
jority and  a  certain  measure  of  liberty,  is  likely 
to  do  all  sorts  of  hazardous  things  which  may 
be  fatal. 

There  is  a  happy  medium  in  this  matter  of 
training  children,  as  in  everything  else,  which 
produces  the  best  results.  To  give  children 
too  much  liberty  and  freedom  of  action  is  as 
pernicious  as  to  give  them  too  little.  The  out- 
come is  usually  productive  of  as  much  evil  in 
the  one  case  as  in  the  other. 

It  is  imperative,  however,  that  those  who 
have  the  care  and  training  of  children  should 
remember  that  there  is  a  terrific  force  in  youth 
which,  if  not  directed  into  useful,  helpful  chan- 
nels, becomes  a  menace.  Many  parents  do 
not  fully  appreciate  this  tremendous  pent-up 
energy  in  their  children,  nor  realize  that,  un- 
less there  is  a  legitimate  channel  for  its  expres- 
sion, it  will  find  an  illegitimate  one. 

Some  over-strict  fathers  and  mothers  who 
manage  to  keep  depraving  influences  away 
from  their  children  by  perpetually  watching 
and  chaperoning  them  make  the  mistake  of 
starving    their    imaginations    by    suppressing 


72  The  Crime  of  Silence 

their  love  of  romance  instead  of  guiding  it  into 
healthy  channels. 

There  is  a  great  deal  of  romance  and  love 
of  adventure  in  all  normal  children,  and,  if  this 
is  suppressed,  strangled,  there  is  a  correspond- 
ing deficiency  in  the  nature.  Any  function 
which  is  not  used  atrophies,  dries  up,  and  we 
are  so  much  the  less  natural. 

Few  parents  realize  what  a  powerful  part 
romance  plays  in  young  lives.  It  is  as  natural 
for  children  to  play,  to  dream,  to  romance,  as 
it  is  for  them  to  breathe.  This  is  their  normal 
expression. 

It  is  astonishing  how  many  youths,  and  even 
children  among  the  poor,  consult  fortune 
tellers  and  palmists,  many  of  whom  are  con- 
nected with  disreputable  houses.  They  pre- 
dict riches,  handsome  husbands,  and  a  luxuri- 
ous life  for  pretty  girls,  and  they  often  play 
into  the  hands  of  pals,  who  gradually  ensnare 
the  girls  into  evil  ways. 

A  leader  in  settlement  work  tells  of  a  hard- 
working girl  who  was  told  by  a  palmist  that 
diamonds  and  all  sorts  of  luxuries  were  coming 
to  her  soon.    After  this  she  accepted  a  dia- 


"A  Little  Devil  to  Play  With"      73 

mond  ring  from  a  man  whose  improper  atten- 
tions she  had  previously  withstood. 

In  this  way  many  ill-trained  young  girls, 
while  searching  for  adventure  and  trying  to 
satisfy  their  longing  for  romance,  are  led  into  a 
vicious  life. 

Regular  habits,  plenty  of  sleep, — outdoor 
sleeping  rooms  are  the  most  healthful — fresh 
air,  a  happy  home  life, — home  made  so 
pleasant,  harmonious  and  beautiful  that  chil- 
dren prefer  it  to  any  other  place  on  earth — 
all  these  are  tremendous  influences  in  molding 
a  pure,  noble  life.  And  such  influences  are 
very  necessary  to-day,  for,  at  best  our  whole 
American  life  is  dangerously  stimulating  and 
over-exciting  for  young  people. 

Owing  to  the  fact  that  in  the  past  boys  were 
brought  up  with  the  idea  that,  while  impurity 
in  a  girl  was  the  unforgivable  sin,  for  them  it 
brought  no  punishment — was,  indeed,  by  those 
who  should  guide  them  upward,  considered 
necessary  for  their  health — they  now  require 
especial  care,  even  more  than  girls,  during  the 
dangerous  years  of  adolescence. 

For  this  reason  changes  in  a  growing  boy 


74  The  Crime  of  Silence 

should  be  watched  very  carefully.  A  youth 
who  becomes  shy  and  morose  at  this  time,  who 
secludes  himself  from  the  rest  of  the  family, 
who  always  wants  to  be  alone,  and  especially 
the  one  who  has  an  unnatural  appetite,  is  just 
the  one  to  be  watched  and  cautioned  by  par- 
ents or  guardians. 

The  abuse  of  the  sexual  function  has  a 
peculiarly  demoralizing,  deteriorating  influence 
upon  the  nervous  system,  upon  the  mental  as 
well  as  the  moral  faculties.  There  is  some- 
thing so  especially  degrading  in  the  perversion 
of  the  sexual  instinct  and  functions  that  it 
coarsens  the  whole  nature. 

We  are  often  shocked  at  the  gradual  change 
in  the  disposition  and  appearance  of  growing 
boys,  whose  entire  being  becomes  coarse,  re- 
pellent. Ignorant  parents  try  to  explain  these 
radical  changes  in  disposition  and  appearance, 
the  gradual  coarsening  of  their  boys,  by  their 
rapid  growth  and  development,  when  it  is  often 
in  reality  due  to  the  perversion  of  the  sexual 
functions,  for  it  is  certain  that  something  fine 
and  delicate  and  beautiful  goes  out  of  the  life 
after  any  contamination  of  this  nature. 

Great  care  should  be  taken  during  this  dan- 


"A  Little  Devil  to  Play  With"      75 

_     _  _ 

gerous  period  to  give  the  boy  the  right  kind  of 
food.  Meats,  condiments,  rich  sauces,  all 
things  which  would  arouse  passion,  especially 
at  night,  should  be  forbidden.  All  food  should 
be  avoided  which  tends  to  disturb  the  sleep, 
and  the  boy  should  be  taught  to  jump  out  of 
bed  in  the  morning  the  moment  he  wakes. 

If  all  children  were  to  eat  their  principal 
meal  in  the  middle  of  the  day,  and  to  have  a 
light  supper,  something  like  corn  bread  and 
milk,  they  would  have  sweet,  refreshing  sleep, 
free  from  the  restlessness  and  irritation  caused 
by  rich  foods,  especially  meats,  with  piquant 
sauces,  condiments,  etc.  Rich,  complex  diets 
are  not  for  youth,  and  parents  little  realize 
what  risks  they  run  in  giving  their  children 
such  food. 

I  know  families  where  the  children  are  not 
only  allowed  to  eat  heavy  meats,  gravies 
and  all  sorts  of  condiments  for  dinner,  but  they 
are  also  allowed  to  eat  late  at  night,  just  be- 
fore going  to  bed.  These  children  are  not  only 
abnormally  nervous  and  irritable,  but  their  skin 
is  covered  with  blotches.  Then  they  are  al- 
lowed to  go  to  all  sorts  of  places,  theatres, 
dances,  and  other  amusements  late  in  the  eve- 


76  The  Crime  of  Silence 

ning,  and,  as  a  rule,  do  not  get  to  bed  until 
after  they  should  have  had  at  least  two  or  three 
hours'  sound  sleep.  In  short,  their  whole 
training  is  calculated  to  overdevelop  the  sexual 
instinct,  to  hasten  instead  of  to  retard  the 
period  of  puberty. 

The  ignoring  of  the  whole  subject  of  sex 
by  parents,  their  carelessness  or  ignorance  in 
regard  to  the  question  of  food,  exercise,  amuse- 
ments, etc.,  for  their  children,  especially  dur- 
ing the  years  approaching  puberty,  has 
wrought  much  suffering  and  sorrow  in  the  lives 
of  millions  of  boys  and  girls. 

Every  healthy  youth  has  a  real  ambition  to 
win  out  in  life,  to  make  good,  to  stand  for 
something.  He  may  not  realize  just  how  he  is 
going  to  do  this,  but  he  has  a  sort  of  general 
understanding  with  himself  that  he  is  going  to 
be  somebody,  and  if  he  fails  to  achieve  his  am- 
bition there  is  something  wrong  in  his  training, 
something  vicious  in  his  environment. 

Normal  boys  do  not  deliberately  plan  to 
form  habits  or  to  do  things  which  are  going  to 
seriously  cripple  or  absolutely  defeat  their  abil- 
ity to  make  good  in  the  world.  They  form 
such  habits  and  do  such  things  ignorantly. 


"A  Little  Devil  to  Play  With"      77 

If  you  parents  would  help  your  boys  to  take 
account  of  their  success  and  welfare  assets,  if 
you  would  explain  to  them  that  their  capital 
lies  in  their  health,  and  this  in  turn  in  their 
food,  their  exercise,  their  recreation,  care  of 
their  body;  if  you  would  point  out  to  them  that 
their  possibilities  for  making  good  in  life  con- 
sist in  their  courage,  their  ambition,  their  aspi- 
ration, their  ideal,  their  determination,  their 
persistent  industry,  their  grit,  their  initiative, 
their  self-reliance,  and  that  all  of  these  can 
be  tremendously  strengthened  or  impaired  in 
the  degree  that  they  care  for  or  neglect  their 
health,  you  would  find  that  no  normal  youth 
would  deliberately  throw  away  his  precious  life 
capital  by  succumbing  to  vicious  habits.  No 
well  reared,  properly  instructed  boy  would  in- 
sist upon  wasting  his  vitality,  squandering  his 
precious  life  force  in  any  form  of  debauchery. 

As  civilization  advances,  the  struggle  for  life 
becomes  more  and  more  intense.  As  our  ma- 
terial standards  of  living  grow  higher  and 
higher,  as  comforts  and  luxuries  increase,  so 
do  the  perils  and  temptations  that  assail  the 
higher  spiritual  life  multiply.  You  do  not 
know  what  dangers  may  beset  your  children 


78  The  Crime  of  Silence 

when  they  leave  the  home  nest  to  make  their 
own  way  in  the  world. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  one  of  the  most  danger- 
ous periods  in  the  hves  of  boys  and  girls  is  that 
between  leaving  school  and  getting  employ- 
ment; because,  instead  of  having,  as  they 
should,  when  they  leave  school,  a  pretty  good 
idea  of  what  they  are  best  fitted  for,  they 
blunder  around,  often  for  many  months,  per- 
haps years,  before  finding  the  place  which  is  at 
all  suited  to  them. 

If  the  State  afforded  the  children  in  all  our 
schools  proper  vocational  training,  as  it  will 
some  day,  this  interval  would  be  greatly  less- 
ened. In  the  meantime,  thousands  of  youths 
are  led  astray  while  waiting  for  work  after 
leaving  school.  Having  no  special  training, 
nor  any  idea  what  vocation  they  are  best  fitted 
to  enter,  they  often  experiment  a  long  time  be- 
fore they  get  permanently  located,  and  in  this 
interval  are  frequently  drawn  into  all  sorts  of 
vicious  experiences,  which  lead  to  their  ruin. 

Questionable  employments  are  also  a  moral 
menace  to  growing  boys  and  girls.  Only  a 
few  years  ago  the  country  was  stirred  up  over 
the  terrible  revelations  of  the  demoralizing  in- 


I 


"A  Little  Devil  to  Play  With"      79 

fluences  to  which  messenger  boys  who  are 
obhged  to  go  on  errands  to  disreputable  houses 
at  night  are  subjected.  A  great  many  fine 
youths  are  thus  led  into  vice  through  familiarity 
with  evil.  Many  business  men  who  lead 
double  lives  employ  them  to  carry  their 
secret  messages,  flowers,  and  presents,  to  such 
places.  Sometimes  they  are  sent  to  the  better 
parts  of  the  city,  apparently  to  reputable 
houses;  but  often  they  are  called  to  the  vilest 
resorts,  and  sent  for  liquors  and  drugs. 

Although  the  telegraph  companies  have  done 
a  great  deal  to  stop  this  evil,  yet  only  a  few 
states,  for  example.  New  York  and  Wisconsin, 
have  raised  the  legal  age  of  night  messengers 
4;o  twenty-one  years. 

I  have  known  many  cases  where  splendid 
boys  who  went  into  the  messenger  service  dur- 
ing the  Christmas  holidays,  or  on  special  occca- 
sions,  have  been  led  into  vicious  practices  by 
becoming  familiar  with  evil  when  on  errands 
which  have  taken  them  into  disreputable  places. 
They  have  been  there  brought  in  contact  with 
a  side  of  life  of  which  they  had  known  nothing 
previously,  and,  not  having  been  safeguarded, 
forewarned,  by  their  parents,  who  have  always 


80  The  Crime  of  Silence 

remained  silent  upon  the  sex  question,  they 
have  become  easy  victims  of  vice  and  ignorance. 
If  these  boys  had  been  properly  trained,  had 
been  posted  in  these  matters,  and  warned  of 
the  terrible  possible  results  from  sexual  abuse 
or  sin,  they  might  have  been  spared  their  tragic 
experiences. 

A  noted  settlement  worker  tells  how  many 
youths  of  good  moral  impulses  have  been  led 
into  vicious  lives  through  the  influence  of  liberal 
tips  which  they  have  received  from  inmates  of 
disreputable  houses.  She  says  that  they  are 
often  given  fees  of  a  dollar  or  more  when  they 
are  sent  to  buy  cocaine,  morphine,  or  some 
other  drug,  or  ice  cream,  cake,  or  sweetmeats. 
More  than  one  messenger  boy,  through  his 
familiarity  with  evil,  has  fallen  so  low  as  to 
become  a  white  slave  trader. 

The  majority  of  youths  who  become  sexually 
tainted  and  wrecked  get  into  the  mire  through 
sheer  ignorance.  They  do  not  know  what  it 
means,  just  as  most  of  the  girls  who  go  wrong 
do  so  because  of  their  utter  ignorance  of  it  all. 
People  do  not  voluntarily  go  into  things  which 
they  know  spell  ruin.  They  simply  do  not 
know.     They  have  not  been  properly  trained. 


CHAPTER  V 

WHITE   SLAVERY   AND   THE   CHILD   WOMAN 

We  are  very  slightly  changed 
From  the  semi-apes  who  ranged 

India's  prehistoric  clay; 
Whoso  drew  the  longest  bow 
Ran  his  brother  down,  you  know, 

As  we  run  men  down  to-day. 

— RuDYARD  Kipling. 

Kipling's  famous  stanza,  given  above, 
would  be  still  more  appropriate  and  forcible 
had  he  substituted  for  "men"  in  the  last  line 
the  word  women,  meaning  the  women — the 
child-women  especially — ^who  are  driven  or  be- 
guiled into  "white  slavery." 

"Suffer  little  children  to  come  unto  me,  and 
forbid  them  not;  for  of  such  is  the  kingdom  of 
God,"  said  the  Founder  of  Christianity  two 
thousand  years  ago.  In  Chicago,  New  York, 
London,  Paris,  Berlin,  and  all  the  other  great 
centres  of  the  Christian  world,  we  answer  His 
invitation  by  suffering  them  to  be  swept  into 
the  brothels! 

81 


82  The  Crime  of  Silence 

Of  one  hundred  and  thirty  girls  who  had 
gone  wrong  in  a  certain  district  in  Chicago, 
recent  investigation  revealed  the  fact  that  the 
majority  of  them  had  become  victims  of  vice 
at  the  average  age  of  eight ! 

Many  of  the  children  brought  into  the  juve- 
nile courts,  and  rescued  by  protective  societies 
do  not  seem  to  realize  what  they  are  doing  or 
what  it  must  all  lead  to.  On  one  occasion, 
when  Jane  Addams  was  asked  to  go  to  a  rescue 
home  and  address  the  inmates,  she  tells  how, 
when  she  got  there,  she  found  on  the  little  white 
bed  of  every  child  or  on  the  stiff  white  chair 
beside  it,  the  dolls  of  the  delinquent  owners, 
still  young  enough  to  love  those  supreme  toys 
of  childhood!  Her  lecture,  she  said,  did  not 
fit  the  occasion,  so  she  remained  to  dress  dolls 
for  a  company  of  little  girls,  who  eagerly  asked 
her  all  about  the  dolls  she  possessed  in  her 
childhood ! 

In  "A  New  Conscience  and  an  Ancient 
Evil,"  the  author  gives' an  account  of  a  little 
girl,  the  only  child  of  a  widowed  mother,  who 
sold  newspapers  in  a  disreputable  neighbor- 
hood where  dissolute  people  frequented  the 
hotels.     The  child  made  a  good  deal  of  money 


White  Slavery  and  Child  Woman       83 

and  the  poor  mother  thought  she  was  too  young 
to  understand  the  vile  things  which  she  might 
see.  But  a  little  later  she  was  horrified  to 
find  that  her  child  was  familiar  with  vice,  and, 
eventually,  the  girl  became  an  inmate  of  one 
of  the  resorts  where  she  had  so  long  sold 
papers  and  gum. 

Another  case  cited  is  that  of  a  woman  who 
did  a  thriving  business  in  a  disreputable  house, 
which  was  supplied  largely  by  three  or  four 
little  girls.  They  brought  their  girl  friends  to 
the  house,  and  became  so  hardened  by  the 
money  and  the  little  fineries,  candies  and  pres- 
ents they  received  that  they  did  not  seem  to  be 
seriously  troubled  when  they  knew  that  bring- 
ing their  friends  to  this  house  would  probably 
be  their  ruin. 

This  constitutes  one  of  the  most  appalling 
phases  of  the  White  Slave  traffic,  the  holocaust 
of  child  victims,  who  are  ruined  before  they  are 
old  enough  to  know  the  nature  of  evil;  who, 
before  reason  or  education  can  let  the  light  into 
their  minds,  become  hardened  and  toughened 
into  insensibility. 

A  physician  connected  with  the  New  York 
Society  for  the  Prevention  of  Cruelty  to  Chil- 


84  The  Crime  of  Silence 

dren  says  it  is  horribly  pathetic  to  learn  how 
far  a  nickel  or  a  quarter  will  go  towards  pur- 
chasing the  virtue  of  young  girls.  In  investi- 
gations of  vice  in  New  York  it  was  found  that 
a  great  many  girls  have  been  lured  to  pay  for 
a  merry-go-round  ride,  or  admission  to  some 
picture  show,  with  the  price  of  their  chastity! 

The  vilest  of  men  give  young  girls  pennies 
and  nickels  on  the  street,  and  in  business  places, 
in  order  to  become  acquainted  with  them,  to 
gain  their  confidence,  and  just  these  little 
things  are  the  entering  wedges  to  their  ruin. 

It  is  unfortunate  that  many  poor  parents 
not  only  do  not  try  to  discourage  their  chil- 
dren from  accepting  money,  or  tickets  for 
places  of  amusement,  from  strangers;  but, 
when  the  children  come  home  and  tell  them 
that  a  nice  man  gave  them  a  ride  on  a  hobby 
horse  or  on  a  merry-go-round,  or  gave  them  a 
ticket  to  a  picture  show,  they  seem  to  think 
that  it  is  so  much  gained,  that  their  children 
are  fortunate  in  getting  these  things  free. 
They  do  not  realize  the  danger  lurking  in  those 
seemingly  innocent  gifts. 

The  vile  men  who  lead  innocent  children 
astray  know  very  well  that  there  is  nothing 


White  Slavery  and  Child  Woman      85 

else  they  love  so  much  as  fun  and  adventure; 
that  they  will  do  all  sorts  of  things  for  a  good 
time.  Children's  curiosity  is  very  strong,  and, 
their  self-control  being  weak,  they  will  go  to 
almost  unbelievable  lengths  to  satisfy  it. 
They  want  to  see  things ;  they  want  to  have  ex- 
periences, and  the  agents  of  vice  take  advan- 
tage of  this  to  exploit  them.  A  child  is  a 
bundle  of  sensitive  nerves  athrill  with  the  de- 
sire to  see  and  to  know,  to  play.  Those  who 
are  lured  by  the  promise  of  a  little  fun  may 
have  very  little  sunshine  in  their  lives.  Their 
surroundings  may  be  discordant,  vulgar  and  in- 
decent. An  intemperate  father  may  make 
their  so-called  home  a  hell  on  earth.  They 
may  really  have  no  normal  home  life,  may 
know  little  of  love  or  affection,  may  have  little 
or  no  outlet  for  their  pent-up,  fun-loving,  ro- 
mance-craving energies. 

Is  it  strange  that  poor  children,  who  seldom 
have  a  penny  or  a  nickel  of  their  own  to  spend 
as  they  please,  should  be  lured  into  all  sorts  of 
places  of  amusement  by  free  tickets?  How 
often  I  have  seen  poor  little  ones  standing 
about  a  merry-go-round,  longing  for  a  ride,  a 
treat  which,  perhaps,  they  have  never  had  in 


86  The  Crime  of  Silence 

all  their  young  lives.  How  they  envy  the  more 
fortunate  children!  How  little  they  dream  of 
evil  in  the  kind  stranger  who  offers  to  gratify 
their  longing! 

City  children  are  often  allowed  to  go  into 
disreputable  houses  to  sell  papers  and  gum  to 
the  inmates,  who  are  usually  liberal  to  them, 
often  declining  to  take  change ;  and  the  parents, 
in  many  cases,  are  so  greedy  to  get  the  money 
which  they  bring  home  that  they  do  not  make 
proper  efforts  to  keep  them  out  of  such  places. 
Indeed,  in  some  cities,  even  when  the  police 
have  tried  to  protect  them,  the  children 
actually  have  had  special  permits  from  the 
mayors,  in  response  to  appeaHng  letters  from 
the  parents,  pleading  their  great  poverty,  as 
an  excuse  for  begging  the  special  privilege  of 
allowing  their  little  ones  to  sell  their  wares  in 
those  dangerous  houses. 

It  is  a  disgrace  to  our  civilization  that  inno- 
cent children  should  be  so  exposed  to  evil  that 
in  a  multitude  of  cases  they  are  almost  sure  of 
being  led  astray. 

Isn't  it  a  shame  that,  in  this  land  of  oppor- 
tunity where  there  should  be  a  fair  chance  and 
plenty    for    every   human    being,    vast    mul- 


White  Slavery  and  Child  Woman       87 

titudes  of  innocent  children  should  be  forced 
to  live  under  conditions  which  are  nqt  fit  for 
any  human  beings,  which  would  be  a  severe 
test  of  the  virtue  and  morality  of  grown  men 
and  women  of  clean,  pure  lives! 

Think  of  the  tremendous  danger  to  purity 
in  the  crowded,  so-called  homes  of  the  poor, 
where  often  entire  families  are  obhged  to  live 
in  one  or  two  rooms,  where  the  sanitary  condi- 
tions are  most  demoralizing,  destructive  alike 
to  moral  and  physical  health!  Think  of  those 
foul  tenement  houses  and  underground  cellars 
where  the  sun  never  enters,  where  the  old  and 
young  of  both  sexes  are  thrown  together  with- 
out any  distinction ;  where  very  often  poor  par- 
ents take  into,  it  may  be,  one  room  where  there 
are  already  several  children,  a  boarder  or  two 
to  help  pay  the  rent;  and  then  let  us  ask  our- 
selves. Is  it  any  wonder  that  under  such  cir- 
cumstances the  natural  safeguards  of  reserve 
and  modesty  break  down?  Is  it  any  wonder 
that  with  such  conditions  in  the  home,  added 
to  constant  familiarity  with  vice  and  crime  in 
their  general  environment,  multitudes  of  chil- 
dren drift  into  disreputable  careers? 

We  call  this  a  land  of  equal  opportunity. 


88  The  Crime  of  Silence 

But  do  those  children,  who  are  obliged  to  live  in 
the  very  midst  of  vice  during  their  most  im- 
pressionable years,  when  every  sight,  every 
sound,  every  experience,  is  indelibly  photo- 
graphed upon  the  growing  brain,  have  a  fair 
chance  in  life?  Are  those  children  who  grow 
up  to  maturity  with  their  minds  saturated  with 
impure  experiences ;  who  live  in  an  atmosphere 
of  vice ;  for  whom  evil  is  robbed  of  its  hideous- 
ness  by  constant  familiarity;  who  are  reared 
with  the  idea  that  profanity,  obscenity  and  sex- 
ual sin  are  not  very  bad,  because  "everybody 
does  it," — are  those  children  responsible  for 
their  ultimate  degradation  and  ruin? 

Just  think,  you  well-to-do  parents,  if,  under 
the  most  favorable  conditions,  where  you  can 
control  the  environment  of  your  children  and 
give  them  all  the  rights  of  childhood,  many  of 
you  have  such  a  struggle  with  them  during  the 
dangerous  years  when  they  are  approaching 
and  passing  through  puberty,  what  it  must 
mean  at  this  critical  period  for  those  other  chil- 
dren who  are  struggling  with  their  awakening 
passions  amid  associations  which  tend  to  arouse, 
to  inflame  the  lowest  animal  instincts!  Think 
what  it  must  mean  to  be  constantly  in  an  at- 


White  Slavery  and  Child  Woman      89 

mosphere  where  morbid  imaginings  are 
aroused  by  vile  insinuations,  the  most  vulgar 
allusions,  sights,  and  suggestive  experiences,  in 
an  environment  where  impurity  is  the  rule  of 
life!  What  are  the  chances  for  their  surviv- 
ing years  of  such  experiences  and  coming  out 
clean,  pure,  and  wholesome;  when,  perhaps, 
with  all  your  care  and  the  constant  suggestion 
of  purity  and  wholesome  home  environment, 
you  may  not  be  able  to  protect  your  own  child 
from  sexual  defilement  or  degeneracy? 

Thousands  of  respectable,  hard-working 
fathers  and  mothers  with  large  families,  living 
in  cities,  and  earning  small  wages,  must  look 
for  the  cheapest  possible  rent,  which  is  often 
found  next  to  a  saloon  or  near  a  disorderly 
house  or  a  dance  hall.  How  are  those  parents 
going  to  protect  their  young  boys  and  girls 
from  the  dangers  that  surround  them  in  such  a 
neighborhood? 

In  such  poor  homes  too,  there  are  no  pro- 
visions for  personal  cleanliness,  for  taking  a 
bath;  and  uncleanliness  is  a  factor  in  develop- 
ing impurity.  Yet  many  of  the  children  in 
those  homes  grow  up  almost  without  knowing 
what  a  real,  thorough  bath  means.     Absolute 


90  The  Crime  of  Silence 

cleanliness  of  person;  clean,  wholesome, 
hygienic  surroundings ;  plenty  of  healthful  ex- 
ercise, physical  and  mental;  a  lot  of  innocent 
play  and  wholesome  fun, — these  are  things 
which  tend  to  keep  the  mind  pure.  What 
chance  have  the  children  of  the  slums  for  get- 
ting them? 

Again,  thousands  of  poor  mothers  are 
obliged  to  go  out  to  work  in  the  daytime,  and 
must  leave  their  little  ones  exposed  to  all  the 
vile  influences  at  work  in  their  poverty-stricken 
neighborhood  during  their  absence.  The  loss 
of  the  mother's  care,  especially  when  she  is  in- 
Telligent  and  has  been  well  trained,  is  a  very 
great  factor  in  children  going  to  the  bad;  for, 
while  there  are  many  exceptions,  it  is  the  rule 
that  neglected  children  who  grow  up  in  the 
midst  of  temptation  and  are  familiar  with  evil 
are,  in  the  end,  likely  to  become  victims  of  their 
environment. 

"I  can  recall  a  very  intelligent  woman,"  says 
Jane  Addams,  "who  long  brought  her  children 
to  the  Hull  House  day  nursery.  The  little 
girl  is  almost  totally  deaf,  owing  to  neglect  fol- 
lowing a  case  of  measles,  when  her  mother 
could  not  stop  work  in  order  to  care  for  her ; 


White  Slavery  and  Child  Woman      91 

the  youngest  boy  has  lost  a  leg  flipping  cars; 
the  oldest  has  twice  been  arrested  for  petty 
larceny;  the  twin  boys,  in  spite  of  prolonged 
sojourns  in  the  truant  school,  have  been  such 
habitual  truants  that  their  natural  intelligence 
has  secured  but  little  aid  from  education.  Of 
the  five  children  three  now  are  in  semi-penal 
institutions  supported  by  the  State.  It  would 
not,  therefore,"  she  added,  "have  been  so  un- 
economical to  have  boarded  them  with  their 
own  mother,  requiring  a  standard  of  nutrition 
and  school  attendance  at  least  up  to  the  na- 
tional standard  of  nurture  which  the  more  ad- 
vanced European  governments  are  establish- 

ing." 

When  will  our  country,  which  boasts  of  its 
equal  opportunities,  free  its  mothers  from  the 
slavery  of  poverty  and  allow  them  to  care  for 
their  own  children,  to  rear  them  in  hygienic, 
sanitary  and  moral  decency? 

Think  of  allowing  a  mother  to  work  out  for 
fifty  cents  a  day,  when  her  influence  upon  her 
children  during  that  time,  even  measured  solely 
by  its  economic  value  to  the  State,  bears  no 
legitimate  comparison  to  the  wretched  pittance 
she  earns! 


92  The  Crime  of  Silence 

Just  imagine,  you  happy,  well-to-do  parents, 
what  these  poor  mothers,  who  work  themselves 
to  death  for  their  children,  suffer  when  they 
feel  that,  in  spite  of  all  their  efforts  and  sacri- 
fices, their  little  ones  are  slipping  away  be- 
cause of  the  evil  associations  and  vicious  influ- 
ences brought  to  bear  upon  them  during  their 
enforced  absence! 

The  time  will  come  when  the  State  will  find 
that  it  is  at  a  perilous  cost  that  it  allows 
mothers  to  bring  up  children  during  their  spare 
time,  in  the  evenings,  at  night,  after  they  have 
done  hard  days'  work  washing  and  scrubbing, 
or  after  toiling  long  hours  in  factories.  It  will 
find  that  it  does  not  pay  to  allow  women  who 
are  sacrificing  their  lives  for  their  children  to 
be  compelled  to  leave  them  to  chance  during 
the  daytime,  while  they  are  obliged  for  a  ridicu- 
lous compensation  to  do  that  for  which  they 
are,  perhaps,  totally  unfitted,  thus  robbing  their 
little  ones  of  that  mother-love  and  mother-in- 
fluence which  would  tend  to  shape  their  lives 
into  usefulness,  and  make  them  good  citizens. 
What  a  tragedy,  what  a  reflection  upon  our 
civilization,  that  such  things  are  necessary ! 

"Save  the  children  and  you  save  the  nation," 


White  Slavery  and  Child  Woman      93 

said  Marcus  M.  Marks,  borough  president  of 
Manhattan,  in  a  speech  at  the  opening  of  a 
Hebrew  kindergarten  and  day  nursery  in  New 
York  City.  "Philanthropy  for  the  benefit  of 
the  old  serves  individuals  only,  but  work  for  the 
young  affects  generations  yet  unborn." 

That  is  the  crux  of  this  whole  question:  in 
caring  for  the  children  of  to-day  we  are  insur- 
ing well-born  children  in  the  future,  the  ad- 
vancement of  the  whole  race.  As  Rabbi  M. 
Hyamson  of  London,  said  in  speaking  of  simi- 
lar work  in  England,  ''The  work  of  day  nur- 
series provides  for  better  children  of  the  future 
as  well  as  for  better  children  in  the  present." 

"If  children  are  not  brought  up  well,"  said 
ex-President  Roosevelt,  "they  are  not  merely 
a  curse  to  themselves,  but  they  mean  the  ruin 
of  the  State  in  the  future." 

Some  time  ago  scientists  traced  the  cost  to 
the  State  of  New  York  of  the  descendants  of 
a  single  criminal  woman,  made  so  largely 
through  neglect,  insufficient  nourishment  and 
lack  of  training  in  childhood.  There  were 
thousands  of  these  degenerate  descendants,  and 
their  crimes,  trials,  and  penitentiary  expenses 
have  cost  the   State  over  a  million  dollars. 


94  The  Crime  of  Silence 

A  comparatively  few  dollars  in  the  proper 
training  of  the  ancestors  of  these  costly  crimi- 
nals might  have  saved  all  this. 

It  is  possible  not  only  to  save  young  lives 
from  the  horrors  and  evils  of  impurity,  but 
pretty  nearly  all  the  crime  with  its  awful  cost 
and  demoralization  to  the  community  could 
be  prevented  if  we  would  only  take  the  children 
in  charge,  and  insist  at  the  outset  upon  a  health- 
ful rearing,  proper  hygienic  environment, 
proper  playgrounds,  proper  recreation  and 
chaperonage  during  their  minority.  The  de- 
moralization of  children  takes  place  within  a 
comparatively  few  years  when  they  are  very 
impressionable,  at  an  age  when  they  ought  to 
have  and  are  entitled  to  have  the  best  possible 
training. 

When  we  remember  that  the  minds  of  chil- 
dren are  like  the  sensitive  plates  of  a  photog- 
rapher, recording  every  thought  or  suggestion 
to  which  they  are  exposed,  we  must  realize 
how  important  it  is  that  they  should  hear  and 
see  only  that  which  will  make  for  nobility  of 
character,  for  beauty,  and  for  truth.  It  is  the 
things  that  are  seen  and  heard  and  learned  in 
childhood  that  make  up  the  character  and  deter- 


White  Slavery  and  Child  Woman      95 

mine  the  future  possibilities  of  the  man  and 
woman. 

Think  of  a  child  reared  in  the  contaminating 
atmosphere  of  the  slums  of  a  great  city  where 
everything  is  dripping  with  suggestions  of  vul- 
garity and  wickedness  of  every  description! 
Think  of  its  young  mind  being  constantly  filled 
with  profanity,  obscenity,  and  filth!  Think 
of  what  it  hears  and  sees,  what  it  has  indelibly 
impressed  on  its  plastic  imagination  every  day, 
every  hour  of  its  young  life!  Then  contrast 
such  a  child  with  one  that  is  brought  up  in  an 
atmosphere  of  purity,  refinement,  and  culture ; 
whose  mind  is  continually  filled  with  noble, 
uplifting  suggestions  of  the  true,  the  pure,  and 
the  beautiful!  What  a  difference  in  the  fate 
of  the  two  children,  and  without  any  effort  or 
choice  whatever  of  their  own!  One  mind  is 
trained  downward,  toward  darkness ;  the  other, 
upward,  toward  the  light.  What  chance  has 
the  first  to  develop  a  noble  character  when  all 
of  its  first  impressionable  years  are  saturated 
with  the  suggestions  of  evil  with  which  its  en- 
vironment reeks,  when  quarreling,  bickering, 
foul  language,  indecency, — all  that  is  low  and 
degrading  continually  fills  its  ears  and  eyes? 


96  The  Crime  of  Silence 

How  long  will  we  suffer  children  to  be 
brought  up  under  such  conditions  and  then 
punish  them  when  they  develop  into  crooks  and 
criminals?  How  long  will  the  State  continue 
to  build  prisons  and  asylums  for  degenerates, 
to  expend  far  more  money  in  housing  and  feed- 
ing the  criminal  classes  than  would  be  required 
to  save  the  children  before  they  become  degen- 
erate ? 

There  are,  it  is  true,  signs  of  an  awakening. 
The  women's  movement  is  making  itself  felt  in 
this,  as  in  all  other  great  questions  looking  to- 
ward the  uplift  of  mankind.  Their  activities 
in  behalf  of  women  and  children  are  arousing 
legislatures  all  over  the  country.  The  State  is 
beginning  to  discover  that  the  children  are  her 
greatest  asset,  which  she  can  not  afford  to 
waste  through  neglect,  or  bad  rearing  on  the 
part  of  unfortunate  or  degenerate  parents. 
She  realizes  that  something  must  be  done  to 
chaperone  or  properly  mother  all  her  neglected 
children  during  the  perilous  years  when  their 
self-control  is  undeveloped  and  their  passions 
insistent  and  imperative,  instead  of  letting 
them  go  to  the  bad. 

Neither  the  State  nor  the  individual,  not  one 


White  Slavery  and  Child  Woman      97 

of  us  can  shirk  our  share  of  responsibility  for 
the  terrible  sacrifice  of  innocent  children  to  the 
evils  in  our  midst,  especially  to  that  most  ter- 
rible of  all  human  ills — white  slavery. 


CHAPTER  VI 

HOW   THE   SLAVE   MART  IS   SUPPLIED 

Is  there,  in  human  form,  that  bears  a  heart, — 

A  wretch !  a  villain !  lost  to  love  and  truth ! 
That  can,  with  studied,  sly,  ensnaring  art, 

Betray  sweet  Jenny's  unsuspecting  youth? 
Curse  on  his  perjured  arts,  dissembling  smooth! 

Are  honor,  virtue,  conscience,  all  exiled? 
Is  there  no  pity,  no  relenting  ruth. 

Points  to  the  parents  fondling  o'er  their  child. 
Then  paints  the  ruined  maid,  and  their  distraction  wild? 

— Robert  Burns. 

Neither  man  nor  angel  can  discern 
Hypocrisy,  the  only  evil  that  walks 
Invisible,  except  to  God  alone. 
By  his  permissive  will,  through  heaven  and  earth. 

— John  Milton. 

In  response  to  the  demand  that  the  "social 
evil,"  or  to  give  it  its  proper  name,  prostitution, 
be  legalized  in  our  country  and  its  victims 
licensed.  Dr.  Howard  Kelly,  in  a  vigorous  pro- 
test, said;  "Where  shall  we  look  to  recruit  the 
ever-failing  ranks  of  these  poor  creatures  as 
they  die  yearly  by  tens  of  thousands  ?    Which 

98 


How  THE  Slave  Mart  Is  Supplied      99 

of  the  little  girls  of  our  land  shall  we  designate 
for  this  traffic?  Mark  their  sweet  innocence 
to-day  as  they  run  about  in  our  streets  and 
parks,  prattling  and  playing,  ever  busy  about 
nothing ;  which  of  them  shall  we  snatch  as  they 
approach  maturity,  to  supply  this  foul  mart?" 

Think  of  the  greatest  nations  in  the  world, 
England,  France,  Germany,  and  other  Euro- 
pean countries  protecting  or  legalizing  this  in- 
famous traffic  in  the  bodies  and  souls  of 
women  under  the  plea  that  it  is  necessary  for 
the  well-being  of  men ! 

For  centuries  English  government  authori- 
ties have  sanctioned  the  "social  evil"  in  the 
army  and  navy,  and  have  established  measures 
to  protect  the  health  of  the  soldiers  and  sailors ; 
but  they  have  felt  no  concern  whatever  about 
the  fate  of  the  women  sacrificed  to  the  system. 
"The  government,"  says  an  authoritative 
writer  on  the  subject,  "is  directly  responsible 
for  a  large  measure  of  white  slavery.  It  is, 
in  effect,  a  procurer  of  women  for  the  vicious 
pleasures  of  men  in  the  army  and  navy.  .  .  . 

"Many  of  the  white  slaves  of  these  brothels 
[in  British  India]  sanctioned  and  supervised 
by  the  government  are,  it  is  said,  mere  children. 


100  The  Crime  of  Silence 

I  How  are  they  obtained,  and  what  happens  to 
them  when  they  become  hopelessly  diseased 
and  thus  'mifit  for  use  by  the  officers  and  sol- 
diers'?" 

When  the  Enghsh  opponents  of  this  awful 
prostitution  of  the  power  of  the  State  made 
their  great  fight  to  induce  the  government  to 
repeal  the  terrible  Contagious  Disease  Act  re- 
lating to  the  garrison  towns  of  Great  Britain, 
where  it  permitted  and  legalized  sexual  vice, 
they  were  subjected  to  all  sorts  of  insults  and 
abuse  for  meddling  with  a  custom  which  had 
been  entrenched  in  military  camps  for  genera- 
tions ! 

We  have  broken  away  from  many  of  the 
harmless  customs  and  traditions  of  the  mother 
country.  Isn't  it  time  that  we  broke  away 
from  a  vile  precedent  like  this? 

Our  civilization  is  responsible  for  the  great 
moral  evil.  There  was  no  such  thing  as  prosti- 
tution among  the  primitive  tribes,  and  it  is  un- 
known in  the  hot  climates  where  people  go 
practically  naked.  The  mystery  with  which  we 
surround  sex  and  the  morbid  curiosity  aroused 
by  the  suggestion  of  dress  seem  to  play  no  in- 
considerable  part   in   the   perversion   of   the 


How  THE  Slave  Mart*  Is*  StiFFLifei)*  '  101 

grandest,  the  sublimest  human  instinct ;  that  in- 
stinct which,  when  properly  used  and  kept 
clean  and  pure,  blossoms  out  into  beauty,  into 
all  that  is  most  healthful  and  noble  in  life,  but 
which,  when  abused,  misused,  perverted,  leads 
to  the  greatest  degradation  of  which  human  be- 
ings are  capable. 

But  the  civilized  governments  of  the  world 
which  either  legalize  and  sanction  vice  or  wink 
at  it  and  encourage  it  in  their  young  men,  are 
responsible  for  many  of  its  worst  phases  to-day. 

Dr.  Martindale,  author  of  *'Under  the  Sur- 
face," quotes  a  British  ex-official  who  for  many 
years  had  charge  of  the  government  brothels, 
or  chaklas,  as  they  are  called  in  India,  as  fol- 
lows : — 

"I  can  not  speak  too  strongly  against  them. 
Many  a  young  boy  or  man  comes  out  to  India 
pure  and  good.  It  is  the  presence  of  the  gov- 
ernment chaklas  that  first  put  it  into  his  head 
to  lead  a  vicious  life.  Many  resist  for  a  time, 
but  when  they  see  their  friends  and  their 
superior  officers  making  use  of  them,  and  when 
they  are  given  to  understand  that  the  medical 
inspection  makes  it  safe  for  them  to  go  to  them, 
sooner  or  later  they  give  way  and  follow  the 


102^  '    '  'ftiE -Crime  of  Silence 

example  of  the  rest.    But  to  start  with, — they 
dori't  want  to'' 

Think  of  a  great  Christian  government  ac- 
tually seducing  its  young  men !  Is  it  any  won- 
der that  the  evil  flourishes  in  India,  in  Eng- 
land, and  in  our  own  country,  where,  if  it  is 
not  legalized,  procurers,  debauchers  of  both 
young  men  and  young  women  are  so  lightly 
dealt  with! 

"Be  not  afraid  of  them  that  kill  the  body, 
and  after  that  have  no  more  that  they  can  do," 
said  Christ  to  his  apostles;  "but  I  will  forewarn 
you  whom  ye  shall  fear.  Fear  him  who  after 
he  hath  killed  hath  power  to  cast  into  hell ;  yea, 
I  say  unto  you,  fear  him." 

But  in  Christian  America  the  man  who  kills 
the  body  is  electrocuted,  while  those  who  make 
a  business  of  killing  the  souls  of  young  girls  are 
practically  immune  from  any  punishment. 

During  the  recent  exposure  of  the  white 
slave  traffic  in  New  York  City,  it  was  found 
that  the  men  who  live  in  luxury  from  the  profits 
of  women's  ruin  and  degradation  have  a  regu- 
lar systematized  plan  for  securing  "new  ma- 
terial." 

They  ply  their  vile  business  even  at  the  very 


How  THE  Slave  Mart  Is  Supplied     103 

doors  of  our  schoolhouses.  "Cadets,"  as  the 
male  procurers  are  called,  hang  around  the 
schools  at  the  time  of  closing  and  try  to  flirt 
with  the  more  attractive  girls,  who  are  flattered 
by  the  notice  of  these  young  men,  who  often 
dress  in  the  height  of  fashion.  In  many  cases 
they  get  into  conversation  with  the  schoolgirls, 
give  them  cards  and  invite  them  to  call  at  their 
apartments,  or  they  invite  them  to  the  theatre, 
to  picture  shows,  to  automobile  rides,  to  dinner 
in  some  fashionable  place,  where  they  often  in- 
duce them  to  drink  and  thus  get  them  in  their 
power. 

A  clergyman  in  New  York  reports  a  typical 
case  where  one  of  those  "cadets"  inveigled  two 
schoolgirls  to  visit  his  apartment,  and  it  was 
found  that  they  had  been  going  there  regularly 
for  some  time  when  their  parents  discovered  it. 

After  a  girl  has  once  yielded  to  the  temp- 
tation to  do  an  imprudent  thing,  her  pride 
keeps  her  from  making  a  confidant  of  her 
mother  or  any  one  else ;  and  the  fascination,  the 
exhilaration  of  the  new  experience,  arouses  her 
curiosity  and  the  desire  to  repeat  it  until  the 
first  thing  she  knows  she  is  charmed  beyond 
her  own  control,  and  led  to  her  ruin. 


104  The  Crime  of  Silence 

In  many  instances  it  is  the  girl's  very  inno- 
cence and  her  love  of  romance  that  are  her 
undoing;  the  fact  that  she  is  unsophisticated, 
and  does  not  know  that  these  men  are  experts 
in  their  vile  trade,  hypnotizing  and  fascinating 
girls  just  as  serpents  charm  birds  until  they 
drop  off  from  the  trees.  Sometimes  "cadets" 
will  work  on  an  attractive  girl  for  months  be- 
fore they  "land"  her,  as  they  say,  because  they 
know  that  she  is  valuable  in  proportion  to  her 
attractiveness. 

It  is  well  known  that  in  our  large  cities  cer- 
tain low  theatrical  agencies  are  in  league  with 
disreputable  houses.  A  prominent  social 
worker  tells  the  story  of  two  fine  young  Eng- 
lish girls,  one  sixteen,  the  other  seventeen,  who 
had  gained  extraordinary  skill  in  juggling,  and 
who  came  to  this  country  under  an  agreement 
with  a  theatrical  manager  to  pay  them  five 
shillings  ($1.25)  a  week  and  their  expenses. 
This  manager  became  stranded  in  the  West, 
and  the  girls  were  turned  loose.  They  applied 
to  a  theatrical  agency  in  Chicago  for  positions, 
and  were  sent  to  a  disreputable  house  where  a 
vaudeville  programme  was  given  every  night. 
They  took  the  position  in  good  faith,  not  know- 


How  THE  Slave  Mart  Is  Supplied     105 

ing,  of  course,  the  character  of  the  house. 
When  they  did  reahze  the  nature  of  the  place 
they  became  frightened  and  managed  to  escape 
from  the  dressing  room  while  they  were  await- 
ing their  turn  to  go  on  the  stage.  They  got 
out  on  the  street  and  appealed  to  policemen 
for  protection.  They  were  sent  to  the  Juve- 
nile Protective  Association. 

Many  unprincipled  agents  bring  colored 
girls  to  our  Northern  cities  from  the  South. 
They  sometimes  pay  the  girls'  fares,  and,  if 
they  do  not  succeed  in  getting  good  situations 
immediately,  so  that  they  can  return  the  money 
advanced  to  them — often  an  exorbitant  sum, — 
they  are  sent  as  waitresses  and  chambermaids 
to  disreputable  houses.  They  are  ignorant  of 
the  character  of  these  places  until,  perhaps,  it  is 
too  late  for  them  to  protest ;  and  even  if  they 
do,  they  may  be  forced  to  remain  there  under 
threats  of  police  intervention  or  of  personal 
violence  until  they  can  pay  back  the  money. 
In  the  meantime  the  girls  grow  so  accustomed 
to  their  vile  surroundings  that  their  hideous- 
ness  gradually  diminishes,  their  sensibilities  be- 
come hardened,  and  they  often  enter  the  life 
themselves.     Unscrupulous    employment    bu- 


106  The  Crime  of  Silence 

reaus  often  send  colored  girls  to  disreputable 
houses  when  they  would  not  dare  so  to  treat 
white  girls. 

One  reason  why  so  many  colored  girls  go 
wrong  is  because  they  are  only  a  few  genera- 
tions removed  from  slavery,  in  which  state  no 
regard  was  paid  to  their  sex.  It  has  only  been 
a  short  time  since  they  began  to  exercise  their 
self-control.  They  have  had  comparatively  lit- 
tle responsibility  along  the  line  of  legitimate 
motherhood.  When  we  remember  their  many 
generations  of  bondage,  their  necessarily  un- 
stable marriage  and  parental  relations,  the 
frightfully  illicit  example  their  slave  masters 
set  them,  the  fact  that  they  are  still  looked 
upon  as  an  inferior  race,  and  that  they  are 
usually  poor  and  live  in  depraved  neighbor- 
hoods, where  the  children  are  an  easy  prey  to 
demoralizing  influences,  it  is  quite  remarkable 
that,  as  a  whole,  the  colored  people  are  as 
moral,  as  conscientious  as  they  are  to-day. 

A  large  proportion  of  the  victims  of  white 
slavery  are  from  farms  and  smaller  towns  in 
the  country.  They  are  more  easily  duped  by 
the  wiles  of  the  procurers  than  city  girls,  and 
their  idj^ntity  is  more  easily  hidden;  besides. 


How  THE  Slave  Mart  Is  Supplied     107 

they  are  more  readily  controlled,  because  they 
do  not  know  much  about  city  life.  Many  of 
these  young  girls  are  led  to  their  doom  in  just 
trying  to  see  what  the  world  is  like.  They 
have  been  kept  close  to  the  home  and  know 
almost  nothing  of  life.  When  they  get  away 
and  get  a  little  more  liberty,  love  of  romance 
and  adventure  and  their  ignorance  lead  them 
astray. 

These  girls  from  the  country  never  have  been 
taught  that  a  young  girl,  friendless  and  alone 
in  a  large  city,  is  in  greater  danger  than  she 
would  be  alone  with  the  wild  beasts  in  the 
jungles  of  Africa;  that  thousands  of  men  are 
watching  for  just  such  girls  as  they,  waiting  to 
lure  them  to  their  ruin,  setting  all  sorts  of  traps 
for  them.  They  are  never  told,  perhaps,  that 
thirty  thousand  men  in  New  York  City  alone, 
not  to  speak  of  Chicago,  Boston,  St.  Louis, 
and  other  big  centres,  make  it  a  profession  to 
lure  just  such  innocent  young  girls  into  sin, 
and  that  many  of  them  become  rich  in  this  aw- 
ful traffic  in  human  lives. 

The  country  girl  who  has  been  accustomed  to 
a  quiet,  simple  life  is  often  thrown  off  her  guard 
by  the  glitter  of  the  city,  the  evidences  ff  luxu- 


108  The  Crime  of  Silence 

rious  living, — beautiful  dresses,  fine  automo- 
biles, and  people  everywhere  on  pleasure  bent. 
She  is  dazzled  by  these  things  and  often  loses 
her  mental  balance. 

Such  an  unsophisticated,  inexperienced  girl 
is  easily  enticed  to  public  dance  halls,  where 
young  men  who  are  experts  in  misleading  girls 
often  induce  her  to  drink,  and  the  proprietor 
purposely  makes  it  very  difficult  to  get  water 
in  these  places.  The  dances  last  only  four  or 
five  minutes,  because  the  chief  aim  of  the  halls 
is  to  get  the  inmates  to  buy  drinks.  Thou- 
sands of  girls  are  thus  induced  to  drink,  and, 
before  they  realize  it,  the  hour  is  late  and  the 
young  men  persuade  them  that  they  can  not 
afford  to  go  home,  but  that  they  can  explain 
the  next  morning  that  they  stayed  with  their 
friends. 

In  other  words,  the  most  damnable  methods 
are  used  to  play  upon  the  credulity  and  the 
vanity  of  these  young  girls.  As  a  rule,  of 
course,  the  girls  know  nothing  about  the  char- 
acter of  the  men  w  ho  are  trying  to  ruin  them ; 
who  tell  them,  especially  if  they  are  attractive, 
that  it  is  a  shame  that  such  handsome  girls 
should  not  have  diamonds  and  beautiful  clothes, 


How  THE  Slaye  Mart  Is  Supplied    109 

and  thus  play  upon  their  vanity.  They  often 
make  them  beheve  that  they  can  get  places  for 
them  on  the  vaudeville  or  theatrical  stage,  and 
that  they  will  introduce  them  to  managers, 
etc.  These  bogus  managers  are  in  the  game 
with  the  ''cadets,"  and,  under  the  pretense  of 
helping  the  girls  to  positions,  lead  them  farther 
and  farther  to  their  ruin. 

There  are  six  hundred  public  dance  halls  in 
Chicago,  and  probably  more  than  a  thousand 
in  New  York.  The  majority  of  them  are  con- 
nected directly  with  saloons,  and  in  all  of  them 
liquors  are  sold.  Bad  men  feel  pretty  sure  of 
a  girl  if  they  can  persuade  her  to  take  a  drink, 
and  the  fact  that  the  girls  go  to  the  dance  halls 
when  weary  after  a  hard  day's  work,  makes  it 
all  the  easier  for  them  to  be  induced  to  do  so  on 
the  plea  that  a  drink  will  brace  them  up. 

Drugs  and  alcohol  are  the  most  potent  aids 
of  the  white  slave  traffic.  Many  of  its  victims 
say  that  they  could  not  endure  their  horrible 
life  without  the  deadening  influence  of  alcohol, 
opium,  or  cocaine. 

"Whoever  has  tried  to  help  a  girl  who  is  mak- 
ing an  effort  to  leave  the  irregular  life  she  has 
led,"  said  Jane  Addams,  "must  have  been  dis- 


110  The  Crime  of  Silence 

couraged  by  the  victim's  attempts  to  overcome 
using  alcohol  and  drugs.  Such  a  girl  has  com- 
monly been  drawn  into  this  life  in  the  first  place 
when  under  the  influence  of  liquor,  and  has 
continued  to  drink  that  she  might  be  able  to 
live  through  each  day.  The  drink  habit  grows 
upon  her,  for  she  is  constantly  required  to  sell 
liquors  and  to  be  treated." 

When  General  Bingham  was  police  commis- 
sioner of  New  York,  he  said,  "There  is  not 
enough  depravity  in  human  nature  to  keep 
alive  this  very  large  business.  The  immoral- 
ity of  women  and  the  brutishness  of  men  have 
to  be  persuaded,  coaxed  and  constantly  stimu- 
lated in  order  to  keep  the  social  evil  in  its  pres- 
ent state  of  prosperity." 

If  the  Government  should  prohibit  the  sale  of 
liquors  in  disreputable  houses,  sever  all  con- 
nection between  the  saloon,  the  dance  hall  and 
these  places  of  vice,  severely  punish  proprietors 
of  disreputable  houses  whenever  liquor  was 
found  on  the  premises,  sold  or  brought  there,  it 
would  be  a  tremendous  blow  to  the  worst  traffic 
that  ever  cursed  the  earth. 

The  whole  white  slave  business  has  been 
forced  because  it  was  found  profitable.     Men 


How  THE  Slave  Mart  Is  Supplied     111 

who  are  mean  and  stingy  in  their  homes,  are 
liberal  and  even  reckless  in  their  expenditures 
on  vice.  When  a  man's  senses  are  deadened 
with  drink,  and  his  mind  sodden  with  bestial 
orgies,  money  does  not  mean  much  to  him. 
This  is  where  the  unfortunates  who  have  been 
ruined  endeavor  to  be  revenged  on  the  men 
who  first  led  them  astray.  They  ply  them 
with  drink  and  force  their  bestiality  in  every 
possible  way,  to  increase  their  income.  This 
fact,  together  with  the  twenty-five  per  cent, 
profit  on  every  drop  of  liquor  sold,  makes  al- 
cohol the  greatest  asset  in  the  white  slave  trade. 

The  most  hopeless  thing  in  the  underworld 
is  the  sordid  love  of  money,  the  selfish  desire 
for  a  life  of  ease,  which  tempts  so  many  young- 
men  to  make  a  profession  of  exploiting  white 
slaves.  When,  moreover,  one  young  man 
makes  a  success  of  ruining  fellow  beings,  his 
associates  find  it  out  and  each  one  thinks  there 
is  an  opportunity  for  him  also  to  make  an  easy 
living  in  the  same  way.  Greed  and  selfishness 
so  grow  upon  these  men  in  their  demoralizing 
traffic  that  they  become  inhumanly  cruel. 

Many  of  the  wretched  white  slaves  support 
in  luxury  and  idleness  the  men  who  have  ruined 


112  The  Crime  of  Silence 

them,  and  these  very  men  whom  they  thus  sup- 
port by  the  profits  of  their  shame  often  treat 
them  most  brutally,  driving  them  out  into  the 
night  in  all  sorts  of  weather,  and  snatching 
from  them  nearly  every  penny  of  their  miser- 
able earnings  on  their  return. 

Not  long  ago  a  girl  was  found  in  a  vicious 
resort  in  New  York  who  was  so  far  gone  with 
tuberculosis  that  she  was  subject  to  severe 
hemorrhages;  and,  because  she  refused  to  go 
out  in  the  cold  and  storm,  her  slave  owner  was 
seen  to  strike  her  in  the  face  as  she  was  having 
a  bad  coughing  spasm.  At  one  o'clock  in  the 
morning  he  pushed  her  out  of  the  door  into  the 
street,  telling  her  that  if  she  did  not  bring  him 
money  before  morning  he  would  renounce  his 
pohce  protection  and  she  should  go  to  prison. 

Think  of  such  damnable  business  being  car- 
ried on  right  under  our  noses  in  what  we  call 
one  of  the  most  civilized  cities  in  the  world! 
African  slavery  was  a  race  blessing  in  compari- 
son with  this  nefarious  trade ! 

The  procurers  in  many  cases  are  protected 
by  the  police,  and  the  girls  are  kept  in  constant 
horror  lest  their  masters  withdraw  their  pro- 


How  THE  Slave  Mart  Is  Supplied     113 

tection  and  turn  them  over  to  the  pohce  for 
arrest  and  imprisonment.  Fear  is  the  club 
held  over  tens  of  thousands  of  these  unfortu- 
nates. 

The  young  men  in  this  wretched  business  are 
usually  well  dressed  and  spend  their  money 
freely.  They  say  that  they  live  in  the  better 
part  of  the  city  and  belong  to  good  families, 
and  will  often  tell  girls  they  are  trying  to  en- 
trap that  their  parents  want  them  to  marry 
rich  society  girls,  but  that  they  would  very 
much  rather  marry  girls  who  work  for  a  living, 
who  do  not  put  on  so  many  airs.  Many  are 
thus  lured  into  slavery  by  these  men  making 
love  to  them  and  pretending  that  they  want 
to  marry  them.  The  girls  become  infatuated, 
and  the  young  men  deceive  them. 

Very  few  women  would  ever  go  wrong  be- 
cause of  their  animality  alone.  It  is  her  ten- 
der side,  her  gentle,  romantic  side  which  makes 
woman  the  easy  victim  of  a  scoundrel.  He 
plays  upon  her  most  sacred  instincts, — ^her  ma- 
ternal instinct,  her  longing  for  a  home,  her 
yearning  for  affection.  These,  and  not  pas- 
sion, are  the  chief  assets  upon  which  the  pro- 


114  The  Crime  of  Silence 

curer  plies  his  damnable  trade.  It  is  woman's 
tenderest  feelings  that  oftenest  lead  to  her 
downfall. 

Such  is  the  fate  of  artless  maid. 
Sweet  floweret  of  the  rural  shade ! 
By  love's  simplicity  betrayed, 

And  guileless  trust. 
Till  she,  like  thee,  all  soiled,  is  laid 
Low  i'  the  dust. 
— Robert  Buhns. — "To  a  Mountain  Daisy." 


CHAPTER  VII 

SMUGGLING   POISONED   GOODS 

Gracious  gods,  grant  that  I  may  be  beautiful  within. 

— Socrates. 

He  that  has  light  within  his  own  clear  breast 
May  sit  i'  the  centre,  and  enjoy  bright  day. 

— John  Milton. 

It  has  been  said  that  great  writers  are  usu- 
ally distinguished  by  their  power  of  setting  the 
reader's  mind  to  the  active  making  of  images. 
This  is  also  unfortunately  true  of  a  class  of 
writers  who  have  no  just  claim  to  greatness, 
whose  pernicious  productions  have  done  more 
to  debauch  the  imagination  of  young  people 
than  any  other  one  thing. 

The  most  dangerous  writers  in  the  English 
language  are  those  whose  artful  insinuations 
and  mischievous  polish  reflect  upon  the  mind 
the  image  of  impurity  without  presenting  the 
impurity  itself.  A  plain  vulgarity  in  a  writer 
is  its  own  antidote.     It  is  like  a  foe  who  attacks 

115 


116  The  Crime  of  Silence 


us  openly  and  gives  us  opportunity  for  defence. 
But  impurity,  secreted  under  beauty,  under 
seductive  attractiveness,  is  like  a  treacherous 
friend  who  strolls  with  us  in  a  garden  and  de- 
stroys us  by  the  odor  of  poisonous  flowers  prof- 
fered to  our  senses. 

If  the  writers  of  suggestive  fiction,  fiction 
that  presents  the  allurement  of  sex  veiled  in 
language  none  of  whose  words  are  actually  im- 
pure, could  see  the  miserable  human  wrecks 
they  have  made,  the  multitudes  of  splendid 
girls  they  have  through  their  pages  lured  to 
their  doom,  the  splendid  young  men  whom  they 
have  led  to  sexual  abuse,  self -defilement,  and 
all  other  sorts  of  sexual  sin,  if  they  did  not 
drop  dead  from  heart  failure  at  the  tragic 
sight,  they  would,  at  least,  exile  themselves  to 
some  distant  place  where  they  never  again 
could  look  upon  those  whom  they  have  ruined. 

There  is  another  class  of  writers  exploiting 
the  sex  question  who  seem  to  think  it  necessary 
to  open  up  sewers  and  uncover  filthy  places  in 
order  to  show  that  they  are  unsanitary  and 
dangerous.  Some  of  these  people  are  taking, 
advantage  of  the  movement  towards  a  higher 
morality  to  give  the  world  needless  descriptions 


Smuggling  Poisoned  Goods        117 

and  portrayals  of  places  where  so  many  youths 
are  ruined.  They  are  presenting  vivid  and 
wholly  unnecessary  pictures  of  the  interiors  of 
brothels  and  gambling  dens,  thus  doing  much 
harm  instead  of  good.  They  seem  to  think  that 
following  these  lurid  descriptions  with  a  few 
moral  precepts  will  excuse  the  indecent  temp- 
tations and  evil  suggestions  which  they  drag 
into  their  writings.  They  do  not  try  to  give 
the  young  a  clean,  sweet,  wholesome  idea  of 
the  relation  of  sexes,  but  go  just  as  near  the 
illicit,  the  forbidden  as  possible,  while  still 
evading  the  law  for  circulation  purposes.  Like 
some  French  writers,  they  go  just  as  near  the 
indecent  as  possible  without  actually  crossing 
the  lines  that  would  bar  them  from  publication 
or  circulation  through  the  mails.  Many  of 
them  have  a  wonderful  art  of  insinuating  and 
suggesting  vicious  pictures  and  situations 
which  they  do  not  actually  express  in  words, 
and  this  suggestion  of  the  vile  is  infinitely  worse 
than  the  expression  of  it,  because  it  stimulates 
an  unwholesome  curiosity  and  feeds  a  morbid 
imagination. 

A  very  sensible  woman,  recently  speaking 
of  immoral  filth  of  this  sort  which  has  passed 


118  The  Crime  of  Silence 

our  censors  of  morals  and  appeared  not  only  in 
books,  but  also  in  some  of  our  periodicals,  in- 
dignantly declared  that  it  was  simply  "smug- 
gling poison  past  the  guards." 

Unfortunately  much  of  this  immoral  sug- 
gestion of  unscrupulous  writers  is  smuggled 
into  homes  and  finds  its  way  to  library  shelves, 
and  thus  the  printed  page  becomes  the  most 
subtle  menace  to  the  unformed  minds,  the  vivid, 
questioning  imaginations  of  the  young. 

Many  playwrights  and  theatre  managers,  as 
well  as  writers  of  fiction  and  magazine  articles, 
are  also  finding  it  very  profitable  to  cater  to 
morbid  sexual  desires.  The  same  tendency 
visible  in  the  worst  forms  of  literature  is  seen  in 
some  of  our  theatres  and  moving  picture  shows. 
Playwrights  and  managers  are  presenting 
questionable  plays,  that  just  escape  being  il- 
legal; plays  that  are  pernicious  enemies  of  so- 
ciety and  lead  to  infinite  harm.  Their  authors 
try  to  justify  the  dragging  of  this  moral  filth 
before  the  public  by  superadding  a  moral  em- 
phasizing the  necessity  for  better  sex  educa- 
tion. 

The  same  is  true  of  suggestiveness  in  art. 
Many  impure  artists  have  made  their  fortunes 


Smuggling  Poisoned  Goods        119 

and  their  reputations,  such  as  they  were  or  are, 
upon  forbidden  ground,  going  just  as  near  the 
point  of  legal  prohibition  as  possible. 

All  these  things  have  a  most  vicious  influence 
upon  the  nervous  system  and  the  morals  of 
growing  youth,  and  parents  should  do  every- 
thing in  their  power  to  counteract  it.  They 
should  not  only  censor  the  plays  and  amuse- 
ment places  which  their  children  attend,  but 
also  the  books  which  they  read  and  the  sensual 
scandal-mongering  newspapers  with  their  nau- 
seating details  of  divorce  trials,  murders,  sui- 
cides, and  general  criminal  records,  which  so 
many  young  boys  and  girls  devour  with  avid- 
ity. 

It  is  a  thousand  pities  that  the  tragedies 
wrought  by  impure  literature,  vile  pictures, 
and  suggestive  plays  could  not  be  brought 
home  to  their  writers  and  producers,  who 
should  be  scourged  in  public,  and  ever  after 
ostracized  by  all  decent  people. 

"Keep  the  imagination  clean,"  said  Haw- 
thorne ;  "that  is  one  of  the  truest  conditions  of 
communion  with  heaven." 

Mrs.  Arthur  Macy,  who  has  been  eyes,  ears, 
and  hands  for  Helen  Keller  during  all  her 


120  The  Crime  of  Silence 

years  of  training,  says  that,  in  one  way  at  least, 
her  blindness  has  been  a  good  thing  for  this 
wonderful  girl,  because  it  has  shut  her  out 
from  the  world  of  newspaper  trash,  the  temp- 
tation to  read  the  cheap,  flippant,  senseless  ar- 
ticles in  poor  periodicals,  and  the  great  mass  of 
vicious  books  and  silly  superficial  "literature" 
with  which  the  press  is  nowadays  flooded. 
Owing  to  her  afflictions,  all  of  her  reading  has 
been  most  carefully  selected.  Her  time  has 
been  too  valuable  to  be  worse  than  wasted  in 
reading  questionable  novels,  those  which  dwell 
upon  topics  of  impurity  and  immorality. 
Her  mind  has  never  been  tainted  by  impure 
suggestions  or  attractive  pictures  of  evil. 
Her  imagination  has  been  kept  wonderfully 
pure  and  clean  by  the  constant  inspiration  of 
high  ideals.  Her  acquaintances  in  literature 
have  been  of  the  highest  type  of  authors,  the 
most  instructive,  helpful,  a  ad  uplifting.  She 
has  been  spared  the  frightful  blight  of  the  sex- 
ual taint,  which  poisons  the  ears,  the  eyes,  and 
the  minds  of  so  many  young  people  to-day. 

Childhood  is  the  story  age  of  life.  The 
mind  of  a  growing  child  delights  in  pure  ro- 
mance, and  too  much  care  can  not  be  exercised 


Smuggling  Poisoned  Goods        121 

in  the  selection  of  its  literature.  The  story- tell- 
ing movement  in  our  city  libraries  is  one  of  the 
most  admirable  in  our  educational  system.  It 
introduces  children  to  the  world's  masterpieces 
in  literature  and  holds  up  for  their  example  the 
highest  ideals  of  life  and  conduct.  If  all  par- 
ents had  the  time  and  the  culture  necessary 
to  have  a  story  hour  for  their  children,  there 
could  be  no  better  means  of  training  their 
young  imaginations  or  of  impressing  their 
minds  with  pure  and  lofty  ideals. 

Whatever  else  you  do,  don't  allow  your  chil- 
dren to  read  exciting,  trashy  novels,  blood-and- 
thunder  stories,  or  cheap  suggestive  fiction,  or 
to  attend  low  picture  shows  or  questionable 
plays.  Boys  especially  should  not  be  allowed 
to  go  to  amusements  which  would  tend  to  in- 
flame the  imagination.  There  are  many 
vaudeville  entertainments  and  picture  shows 
that  have  a  most  unfortunate  effect  upon  the 
boyish  imagination.  People  little  realize  what 
they  are  doing  when  they  allow  their  children, 
boys  or  girls,  to  see  all  sorts  of  plays  and  at- 
tend dances,  where  they  are  up  late  at  night, 
and  to  do  many  other  things  in  which  not  even 
adults  can  safely  indulge. 


122  The  Crime  of  Silence 

If,  where  parents  are  indifferent,  ignorant, 
or  not  adequate  to  do  so,  the  State  could  prop- 
erly supervise  its  youthful  wards  through  the 
dangerous  years  of  adolescence  and  keep  away 
from  them  filthy,  vulgar  conversation,  obscene 
pictures,  and  books  frankly  impure,  even 
though  they  do  not  contain  an  improper  word, 
that  inflame  the  imagination,  the  morals  of  our 
people  would  be  immeasurably  raised;  impur- 
ity would  be  largely  stamped  out. 

If  young  people  only  realized  what  a  terrible 
thing  it  is  to  get  even  a  suggestion  of  impurity 
into  the  mind,  they  would  never  read  an  author 
whose  lines  drip  with  the  very  gall  of  death, 
or  look  at  a  picture  that  suggests  evil. 

One  of  the  strangest  things  in  human  experi- 
ence is  the  persistence,  the  insistence,  the  in- 
delibility of  bad  things.  Vicious  stories,  indeli- 
cate, vulgar  jokes,  impure  suggestions,  will 
pass  over  a  whole  continent  and  cross  oceans, 
when  a  good  thing,  that  which  would  inspire 
and  uplift  men,  would  travel  at  a  snail's  pace. 
Scandal  will  spread  over  a  community  like 
wildfiix,  whereas  the  good  things  said  about 
our  neighbors  travel  very  slowly. 

It  is  said  that  the  mind's  phonograph  will 


Smuggling  Poisoned  Goods        123 

faithfully  reproduce  a  bad  or  impure  story 
even  up  to  the  point  of  death.  Many  of  our 
bishops  and  prominent  clergymen  have  testi- 
fied to  the  fact  that  the  vicious  things  which 
they  saw  and  heard  back  in  their  childhood 
come  to  them  with  all  their  original  vividness 
in  their  most  holy  moments,  when  at  their  devo- 
tions and  even  when  preaching  funeral 
services.  A  distinguished  preacher  told  me 
that  an  impure  book  was  shown  him  when  a 
boy,  and  that,  although  he  had  it  in  his  sight 
but  a  few  moments,  he  would,  in  after  life,  have 
parted  with  his  right  hand,  if  by  so  doing  he 
could  have  blotted  out  its  influence  from  his 
mind. 

The  great  artist,  Sir  Peter  Lely,  refused  to 
look  upon  a  bad  or  inferior  picture,  because  he 
declared  that  it  would  affect  his  standards  and 
mar  his  ideals. 

"I'd  give  my  right  hand,"  says  John  G. 
Gough,  "if  I  could  forget  that  which  I  have 
learned  from  impure  associates,  if  I  could  tear 
from  my  brains  the  scenes  which  I  have  wit- 
nessed, the  transactions  which  have  taken  place 
before  me." 

The    tenacity,    the    indelibility    of   impure 


124  The  Crime  of  Silence 

things  no  one  yet  has  been  able  to  explain,  and 
for  this  reason  it  means  everything  to  the  fu- 
ture of  boys  and  girls  to  keep  such  things  out 
of  their  minds,  to  forbid  their  entrance, — to 
avoid  impurity  in  every  form. 

A  mayor  of  Philadelphia  said  he  could  rid 
the  jails  of  two-thirds  of  the  boy  criminals  in 
the  next  year  if  he  could  banish  bad  plays  from 
the  boards  of  the  variety  theatres  and  put  bad 
books  out  of  print.  An  officer  of  the  British 
government  declares  that  nearly  all  the  boys 
brought  before  the  criminal  courts  owe  their 
downfall  to  impure  reading. 

It  is  probable  that  the  careers  of  nearly 
every  criminal  in  our  prisons  to-day  would 
have  been  entirely  different  if  the  character  of 
their  reading  when  young  had  been  different. 
It  is  impossible  to  estimate  the  damage  which 
results  from  the  poisoning  of  the  mind  in  youth 
by  vicious  books  or  the  suggestion  of  any  form 
of  impurity  stamped  upon  the  plastic  brain. 

Wounds  of  the  body  are  nothing  in  compari- 
son with  wounds  of  the  imagination  which  are 
rarely  entirely  healed.  Physical  mutilation  is 
a  boon  compared  with  mutilation  of  the  im- 
agination.    The  hideous  images,  the  vicious 


Smuggling  Poisoned  Goods        125 

suggestions  which  come  from  a  bad  book,  a  bad 
picture,  or  a  bad  play,  if  they  do  not  cripple  or 
mar  our  career,  may  torment  and  haunt  us  all 
through  life.  Religion  itself,  the  constant 
practice  of  virtue,  can  not  erase  impure  pic- 
tures indehbly  imprinted  on  the  youthful  im- 
agination. 

A  story  is  told  of  an  archbishop  of  London 
who  in  his  youth  had  his  curiosity  aroused  to 
see  some  immoral,  unsightly  picture  which  was 
being  displayed  among  his  youthful  compan- 
ions. Many  years  after,  when  raised  to  the 
archbishopric,  he  was  one  day  giving  a  sermon 
on  "Purity,"  and  this  vile  picture  which  he  had 
looked  upon  in  his  college  days  would  con- 
stantly come  up  in  his  mind  to  torment  him  and 
call  him  a  hypocrite.  He  bitterly  deplored 
his  boyish  curiosity  and  vainly  wished  that  he 
had  then  possessed  the  knowledge  of  his  later 
life,  which  would  have  made  him  immune  to 
the  temptation  to  look  at  any  immoral  thing. 

One  glance  at  a  vulgar,  indecent  picture 
will  make  an  unfading  impression  on  the  mind ; 
the  Hfe  purpose  may  be  changed,  the  outlook 
transformed,  the  aim  completely  reversed,  but 
the  hideous  images  and  vile  suggestions  which 


126  The  Crime  or  Silence 

were  allowed  to  creep  into  the  young  life  still 
persist  in  old  age.  They  drag  their  foul  pres- 
ence into  the  most  sacred  experiences  of  life. 
They  survive  the  years  without  a  loss  of  tint  or 
vividness,  or  of  a  shade  of  vile  suggestiveness. 
They  survive  in  the  memory  when  ten  thousand 
useful  things  have  faded  away, — even  when  a 
large  part  of  our  education  has  been  forgotten. 
These  enemies  of  purity  seem  to  defy  every- 
thing holy  in  life. 

Chemists  tell  us  that  scarlet  is  the  only  color 
which  can  not  be  bleached.  There  is  no  known 
chemical  which  can  remove  it.  So,  when  the 
sacred  writer  wished  to  emphasize  the  power  of 
divine  forgiveness,  of  divine  love,  he  said: 
"Even  though  thy  sins  be  as  scarlet,  they  shall 
be  made  white  as  wool!"  It  takes  omnipotent 
power  to  expunge  impurity  from  the  mind. 
Only  divine  love  itself  can  bleach  out  of  the 
character  the  sin  of  impurity. 

Yet  many  people,  and,  I  am  sorry  to  say, 
among  them  clergymen,  think  that  they  must 
see  evil,  that  they  must  visit  questionable 
places,  that  they  must  go  into  the  vile  dens  of 
the  cities,  into  the  houses  of  immorality,  in 


Smuggling  Poisoned  Goods        127 

order  to  see  for  themselves  the  hideousness  of 
vice  so  that  they  may  know  how  to  rebuke  and 
correct  it. 

There  are  multitudes  who  are  very  particu- 
lar about  the  scrupulous  cleanliness  of  their 
bodies,  who  could  not  be  induced  to  miss  their 
morning  bath,  but  who  wallow  in  mental  sen- 
suality, who  indulge  in  perpetual  debauches, 
in  visualizing  sin,  and  who  never  take  a  mental 
purity  bath.  Those  people  outwardly  live 
moral  lives;  they  do  not  drink  nor  visit  im- 
moral resorts,  nor  indulge  in  profane  lan- 
guage, nor  overstep  the  limits  of  propriety  in 
any  direction,  but  they  live  in  perpetual  mental 
sin.  They  are  physically  moral,  extremely 
fastidious  about  their  bodies,  but  they  feed 
their  minds  upon  the  grossest  pictures  and 
plays,  the  filthiest  literature  they  can  get  hold 
of.  They  do  not  realize  that  it  is  a  thousand 
times  worse  to  take  filth  into  the  mind  than  to 
take  it  into  the  body.  Physical  filth  is  noth- 
ing compared  with  mental  and  moral  filth,  tak- 
ing into  the  mind  the  leaven  of  impurity. 

As  a  matter  of  fact  there  is  a  direct  con- 
nection between  purity  of  mind  and  health  of 


128  The  Crime  of  Silence 

body.  Moral  filth  is  abnormal;  it  poisons  and 
demoralizes  the  physical  as  well  as  the  mental 
being,  the  body  as  well  as  the  mind. 

The  blood  can  not  be  kept  clean  and  pure 
unless  the  thought  is  kept  clean  and  pure.  If 
the  mind  is  saturated  with  uncleanness,  if  there 
is  forbidden  picturing  constantly  going  on  in 
the  imagination,  the  blood  will  become  vitiated. 
No  one  can  ever  estimate  the  fearful  blight 
with  which  a  perverted  and  diseased  mentality 
will  curse  the  entire  life. 

The  imagination  may  be  a  source  of  vilest 
contagion.  Keep  it  sane,  pure,  and  whole- 
some, and  you  will  have  taken  the  most  im- 
portant step  in  building  a  noble  character.  I 
have  found  that  impure  stories,  evil  sugges- 
tions, indecent  pictures,  and  the  vulgar 
innuendoes  of  the  impure  minded  are  repulsive 
to  children  who  have  been  intelhgently  and 
carefully  educated  regarding  sex  matters. 
Every  child  should  be  so  trained  against  im- 
purity, vulgarity,  and  every  suggestion  of 
obscenity  that  these  things,  instead  of  attract- 
ing, will  disgust  him,  so  that  he  will  be  immune 
from  contaminating  suggestion  in  whatever 
form  it  may  be  presented  to  him. 


Smuggling  Poisoned  Goods        129 

It  is  a  most  dangerous  and  cruel  thing  to 
keep  pernicious  literature  in  the  home,  within 
reach  of  growing  boys  or  girls.  It  may  make 
all  the  difference  in  their  lives  between  purity 
and  impurity,  between  happiness  and  misery. 

We  can  hardly  realize  what  a  clean  imagina- 
tion in  youth  means,  or  how  it  will  affect  the 
whole  career.  The  character  and  success  of 
many  a  man  would  be  very  materially  marred, 
if  we  were  to  eliminate  from  his  life  the  great 
inspiring  books  he  has  read.  Who,  for  in- 
stance, could  tell  what  his  life  and  character, 
and  the  history  of  this  country  would  have  been 
had  Lincoln  read  dime  novels  and  yellow-cov- 
ered literature  in  his  boyhood  instead  of  the 
Bible,  Plutarch's  Lives,  the  biographies  of 
great  men  like  Washington  and  Franklin, 
iE  sop's  Fables,  Robinson  Crusoe  and  other 
inspirational  and  character-forming  works? 

It  is  a  calamity  that  so  much  of  our  modem 
literature  should  appeal  to  the  morbid,  the  im- 
pure in  human  nature,  instead  of  the  pure,  the 
good ;  that  writers  should  dwell  upon  the  low- 
est rather  than  the  highest  elements  in  our  na- 
ture. The  constant  suggestion  of  the  good, 
the  pure,  the  noble,  the  true,  the  awakening  of 


130  The  Crime  of  Silence 

the  higher,  the  divine  qualities  in  man,  would 
revolutionize  the  mental  attitude,  the  health, 
and  the  morals  of  the  race. 

If  our  dramatists  would  dwell  less  upon  the 
abnormal  and  the  vicious  side  of  human  na- 
ture ;  if  they  would  picture  less  of  the  bad  and 
more  of  the  good;  if  they  would  emphasize 
wickedness,  immorality,  vice,  and  the  sins  of 
humanity  less,  and  goodness,  morality,  virtue, 
and  the  divine  qualities  more,  the  world  would 
be  the  better  for  it.  I  believe  one  play  like 
'*The  Passing  of  the  Third  Floor  Back,"  in 
which  the  mysterious  ^'Stranger"  personifying 
the  qualities  of  the  divine  ISIan,  will  ultimately 
do  more  good  in  elevating  mankind  than  a 
thousand  such  plays  as  "The  Easiest  Way," 
notwithstanding  the  force  of  the  latter's  terri- 
ble picture  of  the  fatal  results  of  weakness  and 
sin. 

The  tendency  is  for  what  we  see  or  read  to 
live  in  the  imagination.  We  do  not  stop  to 
think  that  this  is  only  the  result  of  a  play  or  the 
reading  of  a  book;  the  reality  of  the  story, 
whether  portrayed  on  the  stage,  described  in  a 
book,  or  suggested  in  a  picture  is  uppermost. 


Smuggling  Poisoned  Goods        131 

We  are  actually  living  for  the  time  the  story  of 
heroism,  crime,  or  whatever  else  it  may  be. 

What  a  splendid  thing  it  would  be  to  utiUze 
this  tremendous  suggestive  power  in  training 
children  by  putting  in  their  hands  only  those 
books  which  will  stir  within  them  the  ambition 
to  become  the  noblest  type  of  human  beings  it 
is  possible  to  be. 

It  is  just  as  easy  to  build  character  with 
books,  with  good  reading,  as  it  is  to  tear  it 
down.  If  the  dime-novel  type  of  story  makes 
criminals  by  its  criminal  suggestions,  the  up- 
lifting, inspiring,  encouraging  books  will  have 
just  the  opposite  effect.  Many  a  boy  has  com- 
mitted crime  while  hypnotized  by  the  vivid  de- 
scription or  suggestion  of  crime  in  a  bad  book. 
Many  a  man  and  woman  has  been  spurred  to  a 
noble,  unselfish  act  while  under  the  influence 
of  some  inspiring  life  story. 

The  suggestiveness  of  vice,  of  impurity  in 
some  of  our  literature  is  responsible  for  many 
blasted  hopes  and  blighted  lives.  The  down- 
fall of  many  a  ruined  life  began  in  the  dry  rot 
of  a  perverted  imagination.  Few  of  us  ever 
realize  how,  by  a  subtle  form  of  mental  manu- 


132  The  Crime  of  Silence 

f  acture,  repeated  acts  of  the  imagination  weave 
themselves  into  a  mighty  tapestry,  every  figure 
and  fancy  of  which  will  stand  out  in  living 
colors  in  the  character-web  of  our  lives,  to  ap- 
prove or  condemn  us.  The  greatest  power 
given  us,  to  bless  or  ban,  is  the  imagination, 
which,  without  self-control,  would  ruin  a  saint. 

As  he  thinketh  in  his  heart,  so  is  he. — ^Peoveebs. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

MOTHERS   AND   DAUGHTERS 

As  pure  as  a  pearl. 
And  as  perfect, — a  noble  and  innocent  girl. 

— Jean  Ingelow. 

A  DAY  laborer  in  St.  Paul's  Road,  London, 
recently  found  a  six-hundred-and-fifty-thou- 
sand-doUar  pearl  necklace  which  had  been  lost, 
though  supposedly  stolen.  After  the  work- 
man had  turned  the  necklace  over  to  the  police 
he  found  one  of  the  pearls  which  had  become 
detached  in  his  pocket.  Being  entirely  igno- 
rant of  its  value,  he  tried  to  trade  it  in  several 
public  houses  for  a  glass  of  beer,  but  the  bar- 
maids, equally  ignorant,  thinking  it  an  ordinary 
bead  or  marble,  would  not  take  it.  This  pearl 
which  the  man  could  not  exchange  for  a  glass 
of  beer  proved  to  be  worth  twenty-five  thou- 
sand dollars. 

How  many  young  women  have  ignorantly 
bartered  their  priceless  peaxl_.ojLYirtue  for  a 

133 


134  The  Crime  of  Silence 

bauble,  traded  it  for  a  few  luxuries,  pretty 
clothes,  jewelry,  or  an  evening's  entertainment 
or  excitement,  without  really  knowing  what 
they  were  doing,  with  little  more  knowledge  of 
the  real  value  of  the  pearl  of  great  price  which 
the}^  had  exchanged  for  a  bauble  than  this  poor 
London  laborer  had  of  the  value  of  the  pearl 
he  tried  to  exchange  for  a  drink!  How  many 
beautiful  girls  who  seek  questionable  associates 
and  who  think  they  are  seeing  life  and  getting 
away  from  what  they  regard  as  puritanical 
home  rule,  away  from  hated  chaperonage,  real- 
ize the  preciousness  of  that  which  they  may  be 
thoughtlessly  flinging  away  for  a  little  excite- 
ment, a  little  false  pleasure!  They  do  not  un- 
derstand that  a  single  indiscretion  may  ruin 
their  whole  future.  Their  mothers  have  never 
explained  to  them  the  terrible  risks  they  run 
of  losing  that  which,  once  lost,  no  wealth  or  po- 
sition can  ever  restore.  They  have  never  told 
them  that  no  fortune,  however  large,  can  com- 
pensate for  the  loss  of  their  pearl  of  great 
price. 

If  girls,  when  they  begin  to  go  out  from  the 
home,  were  properly  armed  and  safeguarded 
with  a  scientific  knowledge  of  themselves;  if 


Mothers  and  Daughters  135 

they  were  informed  of  the  marvelous  precious- 
ness  of  the  jewel  of  vktue,  which  holds  sacred 
the  power  entrusted  to  them  by  their  Creator 
for  the  purpose  of  the  miracle  of  reproduction, 
the  wonder  of  motherhood,  it  would  be  an  al- 
most unheard  of  thing  that  any  girl  should  sell 
herself  cheaply,  or  thoughtlessly.  If  girls 
were  reared  with  the  idea  that  life  itself  is  cheap 
in  comparison  with  their  virtue,  not  one  normal 
girl  in  a  million  would  part  with  that  precious 
gift  for  any  price. 

The  average  girl  has  been  brought  up  in  the 
belief  that  there  are  certain  questions,  certain 
things  in  her  life,  about  which  she  is  not  sup- 
posed to  know  anything.  No  matter  how 
much  she  may  be  troubled  or  perplexed  by 
those  things,  by  the  vague  yearnings  of  her 
nature,  by  emotions  which  she  can  not  under- 
stand, yet  even  her  mother  is  not  sufficiently 
close  to  her  to  talk  about  these  matters  or  to 
give  her  any  instruction  or  information  what- 
ever regarding  them.  Social  conventions,  tra- 
ditions centuries  old,  have  hitherto  commanded 
silence  upon  the  most  important  facts  of  life. 

Yet,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  best  possible  in- 
surance of  a  girl's  virtue  and  the  protection  of 


136  The  Crime  of  Silence 

her  character,  is  in  knowing  the  whole  truth 
about  her  body.  Such  knowledge,  far  from 
detracting  from  a  girl's  innocence  strengthens 
it  to  remain  firm  against  vicious  assaults. 

I  know  a  mother  in  Washington,  the  wife  of 
a  man  of  national  reputation,  who  had  a  most 
charming  daughter,  a  girl  of  superb  physical 
and  mental  endowment.  Her  great  beauty 
and  intellectual  brilliancy  attracted  many  ad- 
mirers. The  mother,  like  so  many  mothers  of 
past  generations,  did  not  realize  the  dangers 
that  confront  young  girls  who  are  reared  in 
utter  ignorance  of  their  sex  nature,  and  never 
talked  with  her  daughter  on  this  vital  question. 
She  herself  had  been  reared  with  the  idea  that 
it  is  a  subject  which  girls  should  never  think  of, 
much  less  discuss.  She  was  an  easy  and  indul- 
gent mother,  too,  and  her  daughter,  as  she  ap- 
proached womanhood,  became  spoiled  by  the 
attentions  of  men  who  had  flattered  her  beauty 
and  brilliancy.  Self-willed  and  headstrong, 
she  drifted  absolutely  beyond  her  mother's  con- 
trol. Finally  the  girl  went  on  the  stage,  where 
she  was  especially  exposed  to  temptations. 

Being  utterly  ignorant  of  her  sex  nature  and 
the  dangers  and  pitfalls  that  surrounded  her, 


Mothers  and  Daughters  137 

the  girl  very  soon  fell  a  victim  to  unprincipled 
men,  who  hunted  her  as  hounds  hunt  deer. 
She  got  in  with  a  fast  set  of  people,  learned 
to  smoke  cigarettes  and  drink  cocktails,  and 
in  a  short  time  formed  other  vicious  habits. 
Though  a  brilliant  actress,  she  ultimately  lost 
her  grip  upon  her  popularity  on  the  stage  and 
deteriorated  so  frightfully  that  she  passed  away 
in  an  inebriate  and  drug  asylum,  a  victim  of  the 
cruel  conspiracy  of  silence  upon  the  sex  ques- 
tion. If  her  mother  had  given  her  proper  in- 
struction regarding  her  sex  nature,  and  had 
early  taught  her  self-restraint,  this  wonderful 
girl,  with  her  magnificent  possibilities,  might 
have  been  saved  from  a  life  of  disgrace.  As 
it  was,  she  was  wrecked  in  the  very  bloom  of 
young  womanhood;  breaking  her  mother's 
heart  and  nearly  ruining  her  father's  career. 
I  have  often  heard  mothers  say  that  they  did 
not  want  their  daughters  to  know  that  any  such 
thing  as  immorality  existed,  that  they  wanted 
to  bring  them  up  pure  and  innocent.  It  is 
true  there  is  something  indescribably  beautiful 
in  the  innocence,  the  sprightliness,  the  ingenu- 
ousness, the  playful  spontaneity  of  perfectly 
pure,    untainted    girlhood.     But,    my    good 


138  The  Crime  of  Silence 

mother  friend,  have  you  ever  thought  that, 
while  you  are  trying  to  shield  your  daughter 
from  knowledge  of  herself  and  the  evil  of  the 
world,  she  may  be  getting  information  from  the 
most  vicious  sources,  distorted,  exaggerated 
pictures  that  may  lead  to  her  ruin?  Isn't  it 
better  that  this  knowledge,  which  she  must 
sooner  or  later  have,  should  come  from  you, 
who  can  give  her  the  truth,  rather  than  from 
illegitimate  sources  which  garble  and  distort 
facts  in  a  way  that  t\411  inflame  and  debauch 
her  imagination?  Why  not  tell  her  the  plain, 
scientific  truth  about  herself  and  about  her 
future,  what  part  she  is  to  play  in  the  perpetua- 
tion of  the  race  ?  It  is  not  scientific  facts  which 
demoralize  the  mind;  it  is  distorted,  obscene 
suggestions  that  arouse  curiosity  and  inflame 
passions.  The  facts  will  not  hurt  your  daugh- 
ter, but  will  protect  her  J*gainst  a  thousand 
evils. 

Owing  to  the  great  ignorance  of  our  girls 
regarding  their  own  natures  and  the  peculiar 
meaning  of  their  sex  they  are  easily  led  astray, 
when  proper  training  and  knowledge  in  regard 
to  these  subjects  would  defend  and  shield  them. 
More  girls  go  wrong  from  ignorance  of  them-t 


Mothers  and  Daughters  139 

selves  and  of  the  terrible  results  of  sexual  sin 
than  from  almost  anything  else,  and  parents 
are  responsible  for  this  colossal  ignorance.  In- 
stead of  our  little  girls  living  the  simple  life, 
which  is  the  only  normal  life,  allowing  their 
natures  to  develop  naturally,  they  live,  at  least 
in  our  cities,  a  complex,  stimulative  life,  the 
very  nature  of  which  tends  to  make  them  pre- 
maturely old.  Even  before  they  reach  their 
teens,  too,  they  are  teased  about  their  "beaux" ; 
— this  at  an  age  when  the  slightest  lightly- 
spoken  sex  suggestion  should  be  tabooed. 
Everything  which  tends  to  over-stimulate  sex- 
ual instinct  should  be  kept  away  from  them, 
especially  during  the  most  dangerous  earlier 
years,  when  the  seeds  of  ruin  are  sown  in  the 
great  majority  of  girls  who  go  wrong. 

Mothers  should  have  frequent  heart-to-heart 
talks  with  their  daughters  during  their  perilous 
years  of  adolescence,  when  rapid  changes  are 
taking  place  in  their  nature.  This  is  the  ro- 
mantic age  when  the  emotions  are  awakening, 
and  young  people,  perplexed  by  the  new  sen- 
sations, are  tempted  to  do  all  sorts  of  foolish 
things.  It  is  the  stage  at  which  mothers 
should  be  most  watchful  of  their  daughters. 


140  The  Crime  of  Silence 

They  should  tell  them  how  multitudes  of  girls 
have  been  humiliated  all  their  lives,  or  abso- 
lutely ruined,  by  giving  way  to  foolish  impulses 
when  romance  was  busy  weaving  her  enticing 
pictures  in  the  imagination. 

It  is  during  this  impressionable  period  that 
young  people  are  most  strongly  tempted  and 
have  an  almost  uncontrollable  desire  to  see  what 
forbidden  things  are  like.  When  they  get 
away  from  the  restraints  of  home  they  want  to 
see  and  know  hidden  things  for  themselves, 
to  get  unusual  experiences,  to  feel  the  thrill 
of  new  sensations.  They  crave  excitement. 
Their  pent-up  energies  and  emotions  often  so 
unbalance  their  minds  that  they  innocently  and 
ignorantly  do  things  which  nothing  would 
tempt  them  to  do  if  they  really  understood  or 
appreciated  their  gravity.  During  this  per- 
ilous, romantic  period  the  sexual  instinct  devel- 
ops more  rapidly  than  the  judgment,  so  that 
the  mind  of  the  growing  girl  is  not  always  nor- 
mal. She  has  not  the  same  perspective  as  older 
people,  and  hence  is  much  more  easily  influ- 
enced and  led  astray. 

Only  a  short  time  ago  I  read  of  a  girl  who 
went  to  a  dance  hall  with  a  friend  "just  to  see 


Mothers  and  Daughters  141 

what  it  was  like."  She  met  one  whom  she 
afterwards  described  as  "an  awfully  nice  man," 
who  was  very  kind,  who  treated  her  to  ice 
cream,  and  asked  if  he  might  call  on  her.  The 
result  was  that  she  did  meet  him  again,  and,  be- 
fore long,  believing  herself  to  be  in  love,  she 
gave  up  her  position  and  eloped  with  the  **nice 
young  man"  who  proved  to  be  a  white  slaver. 
This  was  the  end  of  the  girl  who  had  never 
known  wrong  until  she  went  with  a  girl  friend 
to  a  dance  hall  for  a  few  minutes,  "just  to  see 
what  it  was  like." 

Every  girl  should  be  so  thoroughly  posted 
upon  the  mystery  of  sex  and  what  sex  relations 
mean  as  to  realize  that  a  single  slip,  a  single 
indiscretion  at  this  period  may  cost  her  that 
which  is  more  precious  than  her  own  life.  It 
is  ignorance  rather  than  inclination  that  ruins 
most  girls  who  go  astray.  They  instinctively 
want  to  do  right.  They  love  cleanliness  and 
purity  much  more  than  men  do,  but  the  vicious 
take  advantage  of  their  ignorance  and  play 
upon  their  finer  sensibilities,  their  greater  sym- 
pathy and  their  longings  for  love  and  admira*- 
tion.  How  many  young  girls  are  mined  just 
because  of  their  innocence  and  ignorance  which 


142  The  Crime  of  Silence 

really  constitute  their  greatest  attraction  for 
the  libertine ! 

During  those  most  beautiful  years  in  girl- 
hood, when  cliildhood  is  receding  and  woman- 
hood advancing,  when  the  maiden, — 

standing  with  reluctant  feet 
Where  the  brook  and  river  meet, — 

peers  with  a  mixture  of  longing  and  shrinking 
into  the  mysterious,  unknown  future,  she  needs 
most  of  all  the  care  of  a  wise,  loving  mother. 
During  those  years  the  romantic  faculties 
and  the  imagination  are  especially  active,  and, 
not  having  yet  developed  the  judgment  and 
wisdom  which  come  from  experience,  girls  at 
this  period,  if  not  properly  instructed,  are  in 
great  danger  of  doing  all  sorts  of  silly  things. 
They  have  a  great  love  of  adventure;  all  of 
their  instincts  are  clamorous  and  insistent,  es- 
pecially the  sexual  instinct  which  imperiously 
demands  explanation.  The  result  of  these  far- 
reaching  physiological  changes  is  often  the  de- 
velopment of  qualities  which  the  mothers  can- 
not understand.  These  are  the  years  in  which 
girls  should  be  very  close  to  their  mothers; 
when  they  need  the  guidance  of  wisdom  and 


Mothers  and  Daughters  143 

level  heads,  without  the  bad  results  of  constant 
suppression  and  over-chaperonage.  In  other 
words,  at  this  time  girls  need  liberty,  not 
license,  tempered,  restrained,  and  safeguarded 
by  wise  love,  for  it  is  during  this  romantic 
phase  of  it  that  their  life  is  set,  that  the  trend 
of  character  which  largely  decides  the  girl's 
future  is  determined. 

It  is  fatally  easy  during  this  transition 
period  to  slide  into  the  meshes  of  entangle- 
ments which  mar  the  character  and  which  often 
cripple,  if  not  ruin,  the  whole  life.  This  is 
the  time  when  many  girls  are  unconsciously  led 
into  entanglements  with  men  of  whom  they 
know  practically  nothing,  which  compromise 
their  reputation  and  seriously  injure  them, 
even  when  they  are  perfectly  innocent  of  any 
wrong,  but  have  only  been  indiscreet. 

How  many  mothers  have  been  broken- 
hearted over  the  sexual  wrecking  of  daughters 
who  might  have  been  saved  by  proper  instruc- 
tion! How  many  daughters  commit  suicide 
every  year  because  of  the  sin  against  which 
their  mothers  never  even  cautioned  them  dur- 
ing their  adolescence  or  before  the  age  of 
puberty  I 


144  The  Crime  of  Silence 

How  little  mothers  who  have  been  silent  on 
the  sex  question  realize  that  perhaps  a  few 
heart-to-heart  talks  with  their  daughters,  en- 
lightening them  upon  the  subject,  would  pre- 
vent them  from  making  shipwreck  of  their 
lives ! 

Only  the  exceptional  girl  could  ever  be  in- 
duced to  commit  a  sin  against  her  own  body  if 
she  were  properly  instructed,  if  she  realized 
that  she  was  bartering  the  very  jewel  of  her 
soul  for  a  mess  of  pottage. 

It  is  estimated  that  only  five  per  cent,  of 
those  who  go  wrong  know  what  they  are  doing. 
The  ninety-five  are  girls  who  never  heard  of 
such  a  fact  as  sex  relations. 

You  mothers  must  know,  if  you  stop  to  think, 
that  the  great  majority  of  girls  do  not  talk 
much  about  their  chance  male  acquaintances. 
Even  now  your  own  daughter,  whom  you  think 
so  innocent,  may  have  met  some  man  of  whom 
you  know  nothing,  and  whose  acquaintance 
may  prove  dangerous  to  her.  You  cannot  be 
always  with  her,  and  every  time  she  goes  out  on 
the  street  she  is  liable  to  meet  men  who  have 
no  compunction  at  leading  young  girls  astray. 
Only  the  other  day  I  heard  of  a  man  of  wealth 


Mothers  and  Daughters  145 

and  good  social  standing  who  offered  a  girl  of 
seventeen  the  protection  of  his  umbrella  in  a 
rain  storm,  and  from  that  led  her  on  to.  her 
ruin. 

Men  of  this  sort  play  upon  a  girl's  vanity 
and  her  instinctive  love  of  pretty  things,  fine 
clothes,  and  tasteful  surroundings,  to  win  her 
confidence  and  affection.  Then  there  is  a 
promise  of  marriage,  and  then, — well,  the  story 
is  an  old  one,  and  we  all  know  how  it  ends. 

The  majority  of  girls  who  go  wrong  in  this 
way  are  easy-going  and  pleasure-loving. 
They  have  not  been  brought  up  to  develop 
force  of  resistance;  they  have  not  been  taught 
the  protecting  power  of  a  vigorous  "No."  An 
untrained,  weak  nature  is  a  fatally  poor  equip- 
ment for  fighting  the  battle  of  life  and  the  in- 
sidious, hypnotizing  enemies  of  virtue.  A 
trained  will  and  the  power  of  self-mastery 
would  save  thousands  of  girls  from  untold  suf- 
fering and  ruin. 

A  love  of  finery,  a  passion  for  clothes,  is  as- 
suredly no  excuse  for  an  easy  hold  on  virtue. 
Neither  does  it  excuse  those  mothers  who  have 
never  taught  their  daughters  that  their  unsul- 
lied purity  is  the  very  basis  of  all  that  is  noble 


146  The  Crime  of  Silence 

and  worth  while  in  life,  who  have  never  cau- 
tioned them  against  the  evil  that  may  be 
wrought  by  their  love  of  pretty  things,  their 
desire  to  live  in  ease  and  luxury  which  they 
have  not  earned. 

One  of  the  most  difficult  things  in  the  world 
for  a  mother  is  to  see  anything  wrong  in  her 
own  child.  She  is  blind  to  its  faults,  and  often, 
after  the  worm  of  impurity  has  already  eaten 
its  way  into  her  girl's  heart  and  is  blighting  her 
life,  the  mother  does  not  see  it. 

I  have  never  known  a  mother  whose  daugh- 
ter went  wrong  who  did  not  say  that  she  never 
doubted  her  child  was  all  right,  never  dreamed 
that  harm  would  come  to  her.  There  are 
many  things  that  girls  do  not  tell  their  mothers, 
and  it  is  a  strange  thing  that  this  is  especially 
true  in  matters  of  the  sexes,  their  flirtations, 
their  loves,  their  romantic  experiences.  In 
multitudes  of  cases  their  mother  is  the  last  per- 
son they  would  ever  think  of  making  their  con- 
fidant, possibly  for  fear  of  repression,  or  in- 
creased chaperonage,  the  cutting  off  of  their 
liberties,  or  because  few  girls  are  ever  close 
enough  to  their  mothers  to  talk  over  such  things 
with  them. 


1 


Mothers  and  Daughters  147 

Few  girls  ever  reveal  their  unfortunate  ex- 
periences with  men,  even  to  their  mothers. 
The  very  nature  of  the  sexual  relation  tends 
to  secrecy,  even  with  one's  best  friend.  This 
is  notably  true  when  a  girl  is  conscious  of  hav- 
ing done  wrong  or  been  guilty  of  the  least 
indiscretion.  It  is  all  the  more  imperative, 
then,  that  a  mother  should  be  so  close  to  her 
daughters  that  they  will  keep  nothing  from  her, 
that  they  will  reveal  their  inmost  secrets  to  her. 

It  is  often  difficult  for  a  mother  to  tell  what 
is  going  on  in  her  daughter's  heart,  no  matter 
how  devoted  each  may  be  to  the  other.  But 
every  mother  ought  to  be  able  to  tell  something 
about  it  from  her  own  experience.  She  must 
know  how  hard,  probably  impossible,  it  was 
for  her  to  tell  her  mother  about  some  of 
her  love  affairs.  No  girl  whispers  her  love 
secrets  into  her  mother's  ears  simply  because 
she  is  her  mother,  unless  she  has  been  trained 
from  childhood  to  make  a  confidant  of  her. 

Every  mother,  however,  no  matter  how  ig- 
norant or  how  badly  trained  herself,  has  had 
experiences  and  knows  many  things,  knowl- 
edge of  which  would  be  of  untold  advantage 
to  her  daughter.     Why  does  she  hesitate  to  tell 


148  The  Crime  of  Silence 

her  ?  Why  hide  from  her  knowledge  that  may 
shield  her  from  great  evil  before  marriage,  and 
probably  from  great  suffering  even  after  mar- 
riage? 

A  well-known  woman  writer,  discussing  this 
subject,  says  that  one  would  think  that  many 
mothers  go  on  the  principle  that  falling  in  love 
and  getting  married  are  merely  accidents,  like 
being  struck  by  lightning,  which  is  so  unlikely 
to  happen  to  their  own  daughters  that  it  isn't 
worth  while  to  prepare  for  it. 

It  is  too  true  that  the  average  mother  treats 
her  daughter  as  if  she  never  expected  her  to 
marry ;  for  the  girl  comes  clear  up  to  the  altar 
practically  in  utter  ignorance  of  what  is  before 
her,  without  one  single  valuable  lesson  from 
her  mother  about  herself  and  what  marriage 
means.  She  has  simply  followed  a  blind  in- 
stinct which  has  bidden  her  to  mate.  She 
thinks  of  married  life  as  a  continuation  of  her 
courtship,  a  blissful  experience  with  a  congen- 
ial, worshipping  companion.  She  is  utterly 
unprepared  for  the  rude  shattering  of  her 
maiden  dreams  which  so  often  follows  mar- 
riage for  the  romantic,  uninstructed  girl. 

It  is  criminal  to  allow  a  girl  to  go  through 


Mothers  and  Daughters  149 

the  nuptial  ceremony  without  any  idea  of  the 
real  significance  of  the  step  she  is  taking.  She 
should  be  as  thoroughly  prepared  for  marriage 
and  all  that  awaits  her  afterwards  as  she 
would  be  prepared  for  her  entrance  to  college 
or  for  a  professional  career.  There  is  no  other 
step  a  human  being  ever  takes  so  important 
as  marriage,  yet  there  is  no  other  for  which 
less  preparation  is  made.  How  many  mothers 
bitterly  blame  themselves  afterwards  for  the 
untold  suffering  such  lack  of  preparation 
brings  to  their  daughters.  They  know  very 
well  that  they  might  have  prevented  the  wreck- 
age of  innocent  young  lives.  They  are  power- 
less to  repair  the  evil  results  of  their  false  mod- 
esty, their  prudish  ideas  of  preserving  what 
they  called  the  sweet,  beautiful  innocence  of 
their  daughters. 


CHAPTER  IX 


PERILOUS   "pleasures' 


Man  is  first  startled  by  sin;  then  it  becomes  pleasing,  then 
easy,  then  delightful,  then  frequent,  then  habitual,  then  con- 
firmed.— Jeremy  Taylor. 

There  is  no  vice  so  simple  but  assumes 
Some  mark  of  virtue  on  his  outward  parts. 

— Shakespeare. 

In  Kipling's  fable  of  "Barrenness,"  the 
slave  of  vice  is  asked  to  surrender,  one  after 
another,  his  trust  in  man,  his  faith  in  woman, 
and  the  hopes  and  conscience  of  his  childhood. 
In  exchange  for  all  these,  the  demon  leaves  him 
a  crust  of  dry  bread! 

When  a  man  seeks  questionable  pleasure,  he 
should  always  try  to  think  of  what  he  must 
pay  for  it,  of  his  condition  after  he  shall  have 
eaten  the  forbidden  fruit,  of  what  he  will  have 
lost,  and  of  what  will  have  gone  out  of  him, 
for  he  will  never  be  quite  the  same  again. 

If  we  could  project  ourselves  into  "the  mo- 
ment after,"  how  many  follies  we  should  not 

150 


Perilous  ^'Pleasures"  151 

commit!  If  we  had  enough  imagination,  we 
would  do  our  repenting  before  instead  of  after 
the  evil  deed. 

There  is  no  other  human  experience  so  dis- 
appointing to  the  great  promise  it  makes  as  ex- 
perience in  vicious  pleasure.  There  is  a  fas- 
cination in  regard  to  it,  a  morbid  curiosity 
about  it  which  often  lures  one  on  in  quest  of 
the  forbidden,  the  unlawful,  to  "see  what  it  is 
like,"  but  the  quest  invariably  ends  in  bitter 
disappointment.  There  is  a  fleeting  exhilara- 
tion in  the  draining  of  the  cup  of  false  pleas- 
ure, but  there  are  bitter  dregs  at  the  bottom; 
the  poison  of  the  serpent,  which  afterward 
stings  and  torments  the  victim,  is  concealed  in 
every  wrong  act,  however  alluring  in  its  prom- 
ise. 

No  one  has  ever  been  able  to  explain  the 
philosophy  of  the  fascination  of  evil,  the  call 
of  the  wrong,  the  lure  of  sin.  It  is  an  opiate 
to  those  who  are  susceptible.  They  are  fas- 
cinated by  the  evil,  when  they  know  it  injures 
them,  much  as  a  bird  is  fascinated  and  drawn 
to  it  by  a  snake,  even  though  it  knows  the  rep- 
tile is  its  deadly  enemy. 

This  pull  of  sin,  this  lure  of  wrongdoing 


152  The  Crime  of  Silence 

seems  to  deaden  the  sensibilities,  to  paralyze 
the  will.  Its  effect  on  those  who  yield  to  it  is 
similar  to  that  of  opium  on  victims  of  the  drug 
habit.  They  know  perfectly  well  that  it  is 
their  enemy,  that  it  demoralizes  their  faculties, 
deteriorates  their  brain  power,  saps  their  vital- 
ity, and  will  kill  all  that  is  finest  and  noblest 
in  them,  and  yet  the  fascination  of  it  pulls 
them  on. 

Right  here  in  its  hypnotic,  mesmeric  pull 
comes  the  danger  of  wrongdoing.  It  is  in  its 
power  to  soothe  the  moral  sense,  to  deaden  the 
conscience  that  it  gets  its  strongest  hold  on  its 
victims.  It  acts  like  an  anesthetic,  an  opiate 
to  the  moral  sensibilities,  so  that  the  wrong  at 
the  time  does  not  seem  so  very  wrong ;  and  the 
wrongdoer  does  not  really  grasp  the  full  mean- 
ing of  his  act,  or  appreciate  the  vicious  influ- 
ences of  the  evil  spell  that  holds,  that  enchains 
him. 

We  all  know  something  of  the  terrible  suf- 
fering of  those  who  are  habitually  lured  by  evil, 
when  they  have  come  out  from  under  its  mes- 
meric spell.  The  shock  of  returning  to  their 
senses  after  they  have  recovered  from  the  effect 
of  the  vicious  anesthetic  sometimes  unbalances 


Perilous  ''Pleasures"  153 

the  mind.  They  endure  agonies  from  the  hu- 
mihating  consciousness  of  wounded  self-re- 
spect ;  they  despise  themselves  for  wallowing  in 
moral  filth.  The  reaction  is  sometimes  so 
great,  so  terrible,  that  people  commit  suicide. 

I  have  seen  a  habitual  drunkard,  after  a 
week's  debauch,  during  which  he  plunged  into 
all  sorts  of  excesses,  come  out  of  his  sinful  orgy 
a  total  wreck.  The  awful  lure  of  drink  drew 
him  to  take  into  his  mouth  the  enemy  which  he 
knew  would  steal  away  his  brain,  his  good 
sense,  his  judgment,  his  self-respect,  and 
would  leave  him  an  easy  prey  to  every  other 
form  of  evil.  Yet  the  temptation  to  sin,  once 
yielded  to,  pulled  the  victim  irrevocably  into 
its  toils. 

Some  people,  when  tempted  to  do  bad 
things,  think  they  can  silence  the  still  small 
voice  within  by  resorting  to  drink  or  drugs. 
They  imagine  that  by  drowning  the  accusing 
voice  they  can  better  enjoy  the  debauch,  but 
they  pay  the  price  afterwards.  There  is  no 
escaping  the  penalty  of  wrongdoing.  Many 
a  man  despises  himself,  perhaps  for  years,  for 
some  violation  of  virtue,  or  some  wicked  de- 
bauch indulged  in  when  his  better  nature  was 


154  The  Crime  of  Silence 

lulled  into  quiescence  by  some  deadening  an- 
esthetic of  temptation. 

•  Thus  one  of  the  most  subtle  and  dangerous 
/things  about  sin  is  its  inherent,  fatal  tendency 
^  to  soothe,  its  soporific  influence,  which  para- 
lyzes the  will  power  and  leaves  the  victim  help- 
less. There  is  a  sort  of  lure,  or  glamour,  about 
certain  forms  of  wrongdoing,  which  hypno- 
tize a  man  so  that  he  is  not  quite  himself.  He 
can  not  act  with  his  usual  force  of  choice. 
There  is  a  subtle  mesmeric  influence  at  work 
in  his  brain  which  dazes  him  and  gives  him  a 
sense  of  intoxication,  and  he  is  for  the  moment 
the  victim  of  one  of  the  strongest  impulses, 
that  of  his  animal  nature. 

Perverted  sexual  instinct  above  all  others, 
affects  the  judgment  and  makes  the  victims 
blind  to  their  own  welfare.  Sexual  sinners, 
under  the  spell  of  their  infatuation,  can  not 
see  the  awful,  the  degrading  consequences  of 
their  wrongdoing.  On  awakening,  however, 
the  sense  of  the  guilt  which  comes  from  the 
consciousness  of  sexual  taint  hangs  over  the 
mind  like  a  pall. 

No  one  ever  indulges  in  sensuality  who  does 
not  despise  himself  afterward  when  the  God 


Perilous  "Pleasures"  155 

image  reasserts  itself  and  shames  the  wrong- 
doer. I  have  heard  a  young  man  say,  after  a 
sensual  debauch,  that  the  tortures  he  suffered 
were  a  thousand  times  greater  than  the  mo- 
mentary pleasure  gained  by  the  gratification 
of  his  animal  instincts. 

No  happiness  worth  the  name  is  possible 
when  procured  by  the  violation  of  any  sacred 
law  of  our  nature.  There  can  be  no  real  or 
lasting  pleasure  in  an  evil  deed,  because  it 
shocks  the  divinity  within  us  which  always  ap- 
plauds the  right  and  condemns  the  wrong. 
This  is  perfectly  natural,  because,  being  God's 
children,  we  have  inherited  His  qualities.  His 
instinctive  hatred  of  all  sin.  It  is  the  God 
nature  m  us  that  suffers  every  time  we  do 
wrong;  it  is  the  sense  of  outraging  the  God 
image  in  us,  our  ideal  of  manhood  or  woman- 
hood, that  puts  a  sting  in  the  vice  that  we 
thought  would  be  pleasure.  This  sense  of  out- 
raging our  own  conscience,  this  insult  to  the 
divine  within  us,  turns  the  fleeting  pleasure 
into  lasting  pain. 

One  has  only  to  look  at  the  sad,  unhappy, 
sin-stained  faces  of  the  women  of  the  street, 
to  listen  to  their  hollow,  mocking  laughter. 


156  The  Crime  of  Silence 

more  pitiful  than  tears,  to  get  a  powerful  ob- 
ject lesson  in  the  disappointment,  the  awful 
disillusion  of  vice.  There  is  no  possibihty  of 
extracting  happiness  from  it.  All  there  is  in  it 
is  a  little  temporary  excitement,  a  nervous  ex- 
hilaration, the  foam  at  the  top  of  the  glass 
which  hides  the  deadly  poison  at  the  bottom. 

Hypnotize  ourselves  as  we  may,  we  can  not 
hide  the  truth  that  enduring  happiness  can 
only  come  from  doing  right.  The  moment 
there  is  self-accusation,  self-condemnation,  a 
wounded  self-respect,  the  fancied  pleasure  is 
gone,  the  after  pain  has  more  than  neutralized 
it.  The  rebuke  of  the  conscience  for  the 
wrongdoing  infinitely  more  than  balances  any 
little  measure  of  false  pleasure  that  comes 
while  the  brain  is  intoxicated,  the  senses  hypno- 
tized by  passion.  People  who  violate  the  laws 
of  their  higher  nature  sooner  or  later  pay  an 
awful  price  for  it. 

A  noted  burglar  tells  what  a  fearful  fascina- 
tion there  is  in  planning  how  to  enter  a  house 
and  to  get  away  all  the  valuables  he  can  secure 
without  being  shot.  The  very  daring  of  it,  he 
says,  seems  to  draw  a  curtain  over  the  crime 
and  to  blind  him  to  its  terrible  consequences. 


Perilous  'Tleasures"  157 

If  it  were  not  for  this  misleading,  deceptive 
lure  of  all  forms  of  vice,  it  would  lose  its  fas- 
cination. If  vice  only  carried  with  its  alluring 
picture  the  opposite  picture  of  its  fatal  destroy- 
ing power,  there  would  be  no  such  thing  as 
vice. 

The  tempters,  the  purveyors  of  evil,  the 
seducers  of  youth  try  to  increase  the  lure  of  sin. 
They  use  all  their  arts  to  make  it  attractive. 

The  new  devil  of  the  twentieth  century  is  not 
like  the  old.  He  has  lost  his  horns,  has  ex- 
changed his  traditional  satanic  dress  for  up-to- 
date  modern  attire.  He  has  put  off  his  repul- 
sive appearance  and  become  fascinating  and 
attractive.  He  is  exceedingly  magnetic.  He 
does  not  frighten  or  drive  away  his  customers 
by  his  appearance;  he  allures,  he  draws  them 
by  every  seduction  he  can  command.  He  has 
adopted  the  latest  psychological  business  meth- 
ods. He  does  not  attempt  to  force  his  victims. 
He  merely  suggests,  insinuates,  lures.  He 
keeps  his  hoofs  out  of  sight.  His  tail  is  cov- 
ered by  a  dress  coat. 

The  Bible  tells  us  that  the  devil  cast  out  of 
the  swine  said  his  name  was  "Legion."  This  is 
certainly  the  name  of  the  modern  devil.     His 


158  The  Crime  of  Silence 

name  and  his  forms  are  legion.  He  hides  un- 
der innumerable  subtle  temptations.  The  pit- 
falls he  digs  for  his  victims  are  often  covered 
with  flowers.  Ruin  and  death  are  cunningly 
hidden  under  the  guise  of  pleasure. 

The  wrong  road  is  made  very  alluring  to  a 
youth.  He  hears  entrancing  music  which 
dazes  his  senses ;  the  god  of  pleasure  puts  him, 
as  it  were,  under  a  magic  spell,  and  he  stands 
bewildered,  intoxicated  by  the  allurements 
which  beckon  him.  The  broad,  joyous  road 
to  death  looks-  far  more  attractive,  far  more 
fascinating  than  the  straight  and  narrow  path 
of  wisdom;  and,  if  he  has  not  been  properly 
trained,  if  he  has  not  been  warned  of  the  pit- 
falls in  the  way,  if  he  has  not  learned  how  to 
control  his  passions,  he  is  likely  to  take  the 
wrong  road. 

Most  of  the  glittering  temptations  which  be- 
set youth  and  older  people,  too,  come  after 
dark.  It  is  a  strange  fact  that  whatever  is 
wrong,  whatever  is  demoralizing,  can  not  bear 
the  light.  Sunlight  is  an  enemy  of  vice. 
Darkness,  seclusion,  mystery, — these  are  its 
accompaniments.  Comparatively  little  of  the 
sinning  of  the  world  takes  place  in  the  sunlight. 


Perilous  "Pleasures"  159 

Somehow,  when  God's  sunlight  shines  full  in 
the  face  of  a  man,  it  makes  him  ashamed  of  vio- 
lating the  sacredness  of  his  nature,  of  defiling 
the  divine  within  him. 

Our  idea  of  a  personal  devil  is  that  he  is  al- 
ways working  in  the  dark,  that  the  light  is 
poison  to  him,  that  he  can  not  carry  on  his 
Satanic  operations  in  the  sunshine.  The  coun- 
terfeiter, the  burglar,  the  murderer,  the  se- 
ducer, the  man  who  leads  innocence  astray, 
and  all  his  other  emissaries  do  their  base  work 
in  the  dark,  out  of  sight.  Crime  lurks  in  the 
byways,  the  alleys,  the  dark  places,  the  unob- 
served entrances.  It  shrinks  from  the  open 
gaze  of  day.  The  blessed  sunlight  is  an  enemy 
of  weakness,  an  enemy  of  sin. 

If  a  fraction  of  the  frightful  expense  caused 
by  crime  in  every  large  city  were  expended  in 
lighting  up  all  the  dark,  dismal  places,  es- 
pecially the  slums,  making  the  streets,  the  alley- 
ways and  byways  as  nearly  like  the  daylight 
as  possible,  it  would  diminish  crime  immensely 
and  would  prove  a  tremendous  investment  for 
the  city. 

When  men  are  about  to  do  wrong  they  want 
to  get  out  of  the  light  into  the  dark  street, 


160  The  Crime  of  Silence 

away  from  the  public  gaze,  away  from  the  ob- 
servation of  their  fellowmen.  When  a  man 
goes  to  indulge  his  criminal  passions,  he  wants 
to  get  away  from  observation.  He  would  be 
very  low  who  would  dare  openly,  and  before 
those  who  know  him,  whose  good  opinion  he 
craves,  go  into  the  haunts  of  vice.  If  men 
were  obliged  to  come  out  into  the  open,  into 
the  light,  with  their  nefarious  deeds,  if  they 
were  obliged  to  do  them  before  the  eyes  of  their 
fellowmen,  they  would  never  do  them,  they 
could  not  be  induced  to. 

If  we  could  throw  wide  the  doors  which  hide 
vice  in  a  great  city;  if  we  could  open  the  win- 
dows and  let  in  the  sunshine ;  if  we  could  draw 
aside  the  curtains  from  the  opium  dens  and  all 
the  other  resorts  of  sin ;  if  we  could  turn  on  the 
light,  take  away  the  mystery,  the  secrecy 
which  surrounds  it,  vice  would  largely  disap- 
pear from  the  face  of  the  earth. 

Before  men  who  make  claims  to  respectabil- 
ity go  into  these  vicious  places,  they  look  up 
and  down  the  street  to  see  if  by  any  possibility 
there  is  any  one  in  sight  who  knows  them; 
then  they  sneak  in  and  sneak  out  again, 
ashamed,  disgusted  with  themselves,  their  self- 


Perilous  "Pleasures"  161 

respect  wounded.  They  hate  themselves  for 
their  debauchery,  despise  themselves  because 
they  have  been  something  less  than  men,  be- 
cause they  have  allowed  the  brute  in  them  to 
silence  that  still,  small  voice  of  manhood, 
which  always  calls  for  the  manly  thing.  I 
have  known  groups  of  college  boys  to  go  to  a 
city  at  night  and  indulge  in  drunken,  vulgar 
debauches,  and  then  loathe  themselves  for  it 
months  afterwards. 

Beware  of  the  pleasure  that  looks  different 
in  the  morning,  that  makes  you  despise  your- 
self when  the  daylight  comes;  the  pleasure 
which  has  a  reaction,  which  makes  you  feel  that 
there  is  something  sacred  gone  out  of  you  after 
you  have  tasted  it,  which  makes  you  think  a 
little  less  of  yourself,  even  if  you  do  not  ac- 
tually hate  yourself  for  it. 

Yes,  darkness  seemingly  tends  to  bring  out 
the  evil  in  human  beings.  The  brute  side,  the 
Edward  Hyde  side  of  Dr.  Jekyll  in  every 
character,  is  a  night  prowler.  When  he  sleeps 
at  all  it  is  in  the  daytime  hke  the  owl  and  some 
of  the  wild  beasts;  he  doesn't  like  the  light. 
Most  of  his  damage  is  done  in  the  night- 
time. 


162  The  Crime  of  Silence 

The  majority  of  people  who  go  wrong  are 
ruined  after  dinner  or  supper,  when  they  are 
through  with  their  day's  work.  This  is  the 
time  when  the  Satan  in  us,  the  propensity  to 
evil,  the  temptation  to  do  all  sorts  of  forbid- 
den things,  is  especially  strong  and  active,  and 
our  power  of  resistance  correspondingly  less. 

One  reason  for  this  is  that  during  the  day- 
time most  of  us  are  busy  with  our  work,  which 
is  our  best  friend.  It  is  our  great  protector, 
which  shields  us  from  a  multitude  of  tempta- 
tions that  appeal  to  the  unoccupied  mind,  to 
people  out  of  work,  or  to  those  who  are  habitu- 
ally idle.  A  man  or  woman  who  is  kept  busy 
in  making  a  living,  in  useful  work  has  fewer 
temptations  to  do  wrong  than  the  one  who  is 
merely  seeking  amusement.  The  human  mind 
was  made  for  action;  and,  when  it  is  not  use- 
fully employed,  like  a  piece  of  unused  machin- 
ery, it  deteriorates  very  rapidly.  In  a  very 
literal  sense,  one's  task,  be  it  even  drudgery,  is 
his  life  preserver. 

Young  unmarried  men  are  peculiarly  ex- 
posed to  danger  at  night.  A  married  man 
loves  his  home,  and  so  has  less  temptation  to 
wander  about  after  his  day's  work  is  done. 


Perilous  "Pleasures"  163 

His  family  is  his  balance  wheel,  the  great 
steadier  of  his  character.  But  the  young  un- 
married man,  having  no  home  ties  and  no  re- 
sponsibilities, unless  he  is  thoroughly  trained  in 
self-mastery  and  loves  his  books  and  is  always 
improving  himself,  often  succumbs  to  the  flar- 
ing and  dangerous  amusements,  the  many  al- 
luring temptations  of  the  night,  especially  in 
our  large  centres  of  population. 

The  whole  influence  of  our  modern  city  life 
is  calculated  to  over-stimulate  the  lower  nature ; 
and,  unfortunately,  the  city  offers  all  sorts 
of  opportunities  for  secret  indulgences  in  vice. 
This  makes  cities  much  more  dangerous  for  the 
young  than  the  country  and  the  smaller  towns. 
No  one  knows  and  no  one  cares  what  a  lone  boy 
or  girl  in  a  great  city  does,  and  the  worst  fea- 
ture of  the  dangerous  fascinations  of  all  the 
city's  lures  from  vile  sources  is  that  their  appeal 
is  strongest,  their  power  to  tempt  greatest  just 
at  the  time  when  young  people  are  struggling 
with  an  inner  passion,  which  utterly  bewilders 
and  surprises  them,  especially  if  they  have  had 
no  safeguard  of  knowledge  thrown  up  to  pro- 
tect them. 

It  is  the  first  step  that  counts,  whether  on  the 


164  The  Crime  of  Silence 

up  or  on  the  down  grade.  Job  tells  us  that 
"man  is  born  to  evil  as  the  sparks  fly  upward," 
and  it  certainly  seems  to  be  the  great  trouble 
with  many  of  us  that  we  are  more  inclined  to 
take  the  downward  than  the  upward  step ;  that, 
instead  of  obeying  the  call  of  the  higher  man 
and  ascending  to  the  heights  where  purity  and 
blessedness  dwell,  we  are  but  too  ready  to  listen 
to  the  call  of  the  beast  and  go  down  to  the 
depths.  And  oh,  it  is  so  fatally  easy  to  yield 
to  the  wrong  after  the  first  false  step !  After 
the  first  sin  it  becomes  easier  and  easier  to  do 
wrong,  until  the  habit  is  formed  and  the  pro- 
test within  becomes  fainter  and  fainter,  less 
and  less  insistent,  until  gradually  self-respect 
dies  out  and  the  downward  course  is  acceler- 
ated. 

Thousands  of  women  have  regretted  all 
their  lives  the  drinking  of  their  first  cocktail, 
or  allowing  the  first  kiss,  the  first  embrace,  or 
other  familiarity  of  their  male  companions. 
Tens  of  thousands  of  men  have  taken  their  first 
step  to  ruin  and  utter  degradation  by  yielding 
to  the  temptation  of  their  first  convivial  glass 
with  "the  boys,"  or  to  that  of  entering  some 
den  of  vice  "just  to  see  what  it  was  like." 


Perilous  'Tleasures"  165 

When  men  are  doubtful  of  the  true  state  of  things,  their 
wishes  lead  them  to  believe  in  what  is  most  agreeable. 

— Arrianus. 

What !  know  ye  not  the  gains  of  crime 

Are  dust  and  dross; 
Its  ventures  on  the  waves  of  time 

Foredoomed  to  loss? — J.  G.  Whittier. 


CHAPTER  X 

FATHERS  AND   SONS 

Knowledge  is  power. 

Diogenes  struck  the  father  when  the  son  swore. 

— Robert  Bubtok. 

It  is  a  wise  father  that  knows  his  own  child. 

— Shakespeare. 

"I  HAVE  noticed,"  said  the  late  William  Ac- 
ton, M.R.C.S.,  "that  all  patients  who  have  con- 
fessed to  me  that  they  have  practiced  vice  la- 
mented that  they  were  not,  when  children, 
made  aware  of  its  consequences;  and  I  have 
been  pressed  over  and  over  again  to  urge  on 
parents,  guardians,  schoolmasters,  and  others 
interested  in  the  education  of  youth,  the  neces- 
sity of  giving  their  charges  some  warning,  some 
intimation  of  their  danger.  To  parents  and 
guardians  I  offer  my  earnest  advice  that  they 
should,  by  hearty  sympathy  and  frank  explana- 
tion, aid  their  charges  in  maintaining  pure 
lives." 

Ignorance  is  the  cause  of  much  of  the  crimi- 

166 


Fathers  and  Sons  167 

nal  perversion  of  the  noblest  of  human  instincts. 
We  have  been  emphasizing  in  educational  mat- 
ters the  fact  that  ''knowledge  is  power."  Now 
We  are  beginning  to  find  that  knowledge,  pure, 
sane  and  scientific  knowledge  in  sex  matters, 
is  a  youth's  greatest  protection  against  evil. 
Many  human  wrecks  have  been  ruined  through 
ignorance. 

What  would  you  think  of  a  father  who 
would  build  a  ship  for  his  son,  teach  him  every 
detail  about  its  construction,  and  equip  it  com- 
pletely, but  who  would  fail  to  put  a  compass 
on  board  to  tell  his  son  anything  about  navi- 
gation, and  would  then  start  him  out  across  an 
unknown  ocean?  What  would  be  the  chances 
of  the  boy's  reaching  port  in  safety?  Yet 
many  a  father  thus  sets  his  son  adrift,  without 
moral  compass  or  rudder,  upon  the  high  seas 
of  life !  He  sends  him  into  the  midst  of  temp- 
tations and  dangers,  without  a  word  of  advice 
or  guidance  in  regard  to  the  perils  that  may 
assail  him  from  within  and  without,  without 
teaching  him  anything  of  the  meaning,  the  use, 
or  the  abuse  of  a  passion  which  he  feels  develop- 
ing within  him,  but  of  whose  mysterious  nature 
he  is  totally  ignorant! 


168  The  Crime  of  Silence 

It  is  a  strange  thing  that  men  who  have 
nearly  been  wrecked  on  the  sex  rocks  them- 
selves, knowing  the  frightful  risks  and  the 
perils  in  the  path  of  youth,  do  not  warn  their 
sons.  Every  father  knows  the  ordeal  his  boy 
will  have  to  pass  through  during  the  early 
years  of  his  hfe,  and  his  silence  in  regard  to  it 
is  cruel,  criminal. 

There  is  no  other  way  in  which  you  can  ren- 
der your  son  i^uch  valuable  service  as  to  instil 
into  his  heart  the  idea  of  the  terrible  havoc 
which  uncontrolled,  abused,  or  misused  sexual 
instinct  will  bring  to  him.  To  be  forearmed, 
protected  by  scientific  knowledge  of  the  dan- 
gers of  uncontrolled  sexual  instincts,  is  as 
necessary  for  a  youth  as  to  be  provided  with  a 
chart  showing  the  position  of  the  rocks  and 
reefs,  the  dangerous  eddies  and  currents  in  his 
course  is  for  a  navigator.  It  is  a  terrible  thing 
to  allow  your  son  to  run  the  danger  of  being 
morally  wrecked,  to  take  such  risks,  not  only 
with  his  health,  happiness,  and  success,  but  also 
with  the  health,  happiness,  and  success  of  those 
who  come  after  him,  just  because  you  do  not 
like  to  speak  of  such  a  delicate  matter  or  do 


Fathers  and  Sons  169 

not  quite  know  how  to  do  it.  He  will  think 
that  you  are  ashamed  to  speak  to  him  about  a 
function  which  the  Creator  did  not  think  it  be- 
neath him  to  create  in  such  a  marvelous  man- 
ner. He  will  probably  think  that  you  yourself 
have  done  something  to  be  ashamed  of,  and 
that  you  can  not  bear  to  speak  of  the  matter 
to  him. 

The  majority  of  fathers  seem  to  think  that 
everything  connected  with  the  moral  and  spir- 
itual training  of  their  boys  is  none  of  their  busi- 
ness, but  that  all  that  must  be  attended  to  by 
the  mothers.  But  there  is  a  period  in  youth 
when  the  father  is  better  fitted  even  than  the 
mother  to  instruct  his  boy  in  sex  matters.  He 
knows  even  better  than  she  does  the  tempta- 
tions to  which  a  growing  youth  will  be  exposed 
from  within  and  without.  He  can  warn  him 
against  pitfalls  of  which  she,  perhaps,  may  be 
ignorant.  He  can  better  understand  the  na- 
ture and  development  of  his  unfolding  pas- 
sions. 

There  is  no  other  period  in  the  life  of  a 
youth  so  beautiful,  so  interesting,  so  sacred, 
as   the   critical  period   approaching  puberty. 


170  The  Crime  of  Silence 

During  these  short  years  his  whole  character  is 
usually  determined, — his  physical  vigor,  his 
manner,  his  voice,  his  mental  powers. 

Sexual  abuse  or  forbidden  indulgences  dur- 
ing this  stage  so  sap  the  vitality  as  to  dwarf  and 
blight  both  physical  and  mental  development. 
A  perverted  imagination  at  this  age  has  a 
frightful  effect  upon  the  entire  nature.  The 
symptoms  of  such  a  condition  can  often  be  no- 
ticed in  the  gi^adual  change  in  the  youth's  man- 
ner and  disposition.  He  avoids  the  society  of 
others.  He  keeps  by  himself.  He  blushes 
and  stammers  in  the  presence  of  strangers. 
He  shrinks  from  his  former  close  communion 
with  his  mother  or  even  his  father.  He  does 
not  enjoy  being  questioned  about  himself.  He 
does  not  like  to  face  people  or  look  them  in  the 
eye. 

In  the  average  boy  the  sexual  instinct  is 
probably  at  its  height  from  fifteen  to  seventeen 
years  of  age,  and  the  sexual  desires  are  then 
most  insistent.  This  is  the  time  of  gravest 
peril  in  his  career;  and,  if  proper  information 
on  the  subject  is  given  before  the  desires  are 
fully  developed  or  indulged  in,  the  boy  will  be 
in  an  infinitely  safer  position  than  if  left  in  ig- 


Fathers  and  Sons  171 

norance  because  he  will  know  what  it  all  means, 
and  will  be  better  prepared  to  meet  tempta- 
tion. 

If  you  can  guard  your  son  against  the  misuse 
of  the  sexual  instinct  and  keep  him  from  self- 
defilement  up  to  seventeen  years  of  age ;  if  you 
have  fortified  his  mind  with  healthy  informa- 
tion upon  the  subject,  he  will  be  comparatively 
safe  thereafter. 

Now,  it  is  a  splendid  thing  when  your  boy  is 
approaching  puberty  to  ask  him  frequently  if 
anything  is  troubling,  or  puzzling  him;  if  he 
has  any  problem  with  which  you  can  help  him. 

Every  boy  is  going  to  have  a  confidant,  some 
one  to  whom  he  can  tell  his  secrets,  to  whom  he 
can  whisper  his  hopes  and  ambitions  which  he 
would  not  breathe  to  others.  We  take  it  for 
granted  that  his  mother  will  stand  nearer  to 
him  than  any  other  person ;  but  every  boy  will 
have  some  male  friend  who  will  stand  in  a 
peculiar  relation  to  him,  one  which  even  his 
mother  cannot  fill.  This  friend,  this  confidant, 
should  be  his  father. 

The  discovery  has  recently  been  made  that 
the  marvelous  modification  of  a  boy's  physique 
and  mind  before  puberty  is  due  to  the  action  of 


172  The  Crime  of  Silence 


the  sex  fluid  which  normally,  is  absorbed  into 
the  blood  and  other  secretions,  where  it  per- 
forms its  miracle  of  transformation  into  mas- 
culinity and  virility,  but  which  if  abused, 
wasted  or  lost,  causes  a  corresponding  loss  in 
the  youth,  makes  him  so  much  less  a  man  and  so 
much  more  a  woman. 

How  easy  it  would  be  for  a  father  to  show  his 
boy  that  his  sexual  organs  were  set  aside  for  a 
divine  purpose  and  that  any  abuse  of  them  will 
mar  his  whole  life  and  possibly  ruin  his  career, 
to  say  nothing  of  the  tremendous  suffering  and 
danger  which  come  from  the  horrible  dis- 
eases that  often  follow  abuse  of  the  sexual  in- 
stinct. 

If  you  begin  early  enough,  it  is  compara- 
tively easy  for  you  to  gain  your  boy's  confi- 
dence, so  that  he  will  instinctively  come  to  you 
with  anything  that  troubles  or  perplexes  him 
in  regard  to  sexual  matters.  From  infancy, 
he  should  grow  up  to  feel  that  no  one  can  take 
your  place;  that  you  stand  in  a  peculiar  rela- 
tion to  him,  which  no  one  else  can  fill. 

A  boy's  temperament  and  disposition  have  a 
great  bearing  upon  his  sexual  development'  and 
excitability.     A  very  emotional  and  precocious 


Fathers  and  Sons  173 

boy,  even  though  he  be  quiet  and  sedate  and 
his  parents  may  think  that  his  mind  has  never 
been  tainted,  may  be  suffering  untold  ag- 
onies from  habits  which  he  has  formed,  prob- 
ably, because  he  knew  nothing  whatever  of 
their  baneful  effects. 

Many  a  boy  suffering  thus  has  longed  to 
have  his  father  ask  him  a  straight  question 
about  himself,  because  this  would  give  him  an 
opportunity  to  open  his  heart  on  the  subject. 
Young  men  have  told  me  that  when  boys  they 
often  took  long  walks  with  their  father  and 
took  pains  to  be  with  him  at  every  opportunity, 
longing,  hoping  against  hope,  that  he  would 
broach  the  matter  which  was  troubling  them, — 
but  never  a  word  came  on  that  subject. 

No  matter  how  innocent  a  boy  may  be,  if  he 
has  reached  the  age  of  puberty,  it  is  infinitely 
safer  for  you,  his  father,  to  ask  him  to  tell  you 
honestly  and  plainly  all  about  himself,  than  to 
keep  silent  on  questions  which  so  closely  affect 
his  health  and  happiness,  his  whole  future  well- 
being.  Perhaps  many  times  he  has  attempted 
to  approach  the  subject  himself  and  the  words 
have  stuck  in  his  throat.  He  has  thought,  *'If 
my  father  with  all  his  years  and  wisdom  does 


174  The  Crime  of  Silence 

not  mention  this  matter  to  me,  it  must  be  a 
terrible  thing  for  me  to  speak  of  it  to  him. 
There  is  something  mysterious  about  it.  It 
must  be  one  of  the  things  which  he  regards  as 
unmentionable,  something  to  be  ashamed  of." 
Many  boys  reason  thus  and  think  that  their 
father  would  reprimand  them  severely  for  even 
having  these  forbidden  thoughts  in  their  mind. 

I  have  known  boys  whose  hearts  were  almost 
breaking  for  clean,  pure,  accurate  information 
in  regard  to  the  mysterious  force  which  they 
have  felt  growing  within  them,  and  which  they 
have  been  unable  to  understand,  but  never  a 
word  of  explanation  has  come  from  their  par- 
ents. Is  it  strange  that  boys  should  hesitate 
to  speak  to  either  fathers  or  mothers  on  a  sub- 
ject which  they,  with  all  their  experience  and 
wisdom,  for  some  mysterious  reason  treat  as  if 
it  did  not  exist  ? 

Do  not  think,  then,  because  your  boy  never 
says  anything  about  these  tabooed  questions, 
that  he  is  not  in  danger  of  contamination  or 
that  he  is  not  already  being  contaminated. 
Youths,  naturally,  will  not  talk  about  these 
things  without  encouragement,  and  if  you  have 
not  brought  up  your  son  to  look  upon  you  as 


Fathers  and  Sons  175 

his  chum,  as  his  best  friend,  one  to  whom  he 
can  open  his  heart  of  hearts,  he  is  in  danger. 
One  impure  companion  may  contaminate  his 
whole  life  before  you  realize  it.  It  is  a  crime 
on  your  part  to  keep  anything  back  from  your 
boy  which  he  ought  to  know ;  and  you  know  a 
great  many  things  which  would  be  of  wonder- 
ful help  to  him.  You  know,  too,  that  whole 
schools,  colleges,  institutions  of  all  kinds,  are 
often  honeycombed  with  the  misuse  or  abuse  of 
the  sexual  instinct,  and  that,  in  innumerable 
cases,  wrong,  morbid  information  upon  this 
sacred  subject  has  been  the  beginning  of  ruin. 

The  church  fathers  used  to  teach  that  the 
sexual  desire  is  evil,  is  of  the  devil;  but  we  now 
know  that  the  impulse  itself,  rightly  directed, 
rightly  controlled,  is  the  very  insignia  of  man- 
hood, the  very  force  which  vitalizes  and  gives 
virility,  spontaneity  and  power  to  the  person- 
ality. 

Teach  your  boy  that  the  quintessence  of  his 
vitahty  is  dependent  upon  the  maintainence  of 
his  sexual  integrity,  that  any  impairment  or 
abuse  of  the  generative  functions  upon  which 
the  reproduction  of  the  race  depends,  which 
are  so  intimately  connected  with  every  cell  of 


176  The  Crime  of  Silence 

the  body,  involves  a  loss  of  physical  and  mental 
creative  energy  which  neither  physicians  nor 
drugs  nor  any  advertised  remedies  can  restore. 
Impress  upon  him  the  fact  that  his  health,  his 
future  success  and  welfare  will  all  depend  upon 
his  preserving  physical  and  mental  vigor,  and 
that  the  most  dangerous  leak  in  those  matters 
is  caused  by  abuse  of  the  sexual  instinct. 
Show  him  that  the  proper  use  and  the  proper 
restraint  of  this  instinct  is  the  very  foundation 
of  life  and  character. 

Tell  your  son  that  a  large  percentage  of 
those  who  have  lost  their  grip  upon  themselves 
are  sexual  wrecks  in  one  way  or  another;  that 
many  of  the  men  who  are  headed  for  the  poor- 
house,  headed  for  failure,  the  amount-to-noth- 
ings,  the  nobodies,  the  mere  human  shadows, 
the  burned-out  beings  one  sees  on  every  hand 
are  those  who  have  been  to  a  greater  or  less  ex- 
tent emasculated  through  sexual  indulgence. 
Their  vitality  and  stamina  have  been  sapped; 
their  self-respect  killed,  their  efficiency  de- 
stroyed, through  lack  of  self-restraint,  perhaps 
on  the  very  threshold  of  manhood. 

Caution  your  boy  that  incontinence,  espe- 
cially before  complete  growth,  or  in  any  un- 


Fathers  and  Sons  177 

lawful  way,  results  in  both  physical  and  mental 
dwarfage.  Oftentimes  indications  of  this  are 
shown  in  a  high  squeaky  voice,  scant  beard, 
thin  hair,  small  flabby  muscles,  morbid  sensi- 
tiveness, and  moroseness.  These  are  some  of 
the  signs  of  lost  manhood  through  the  unnat- 
ural drainage  of  the  life  force.  The  unfor- 
tunates who  exhibit  those  signs  are  forceless, 
characterless,  weak,  inefficient.  In  short,  there 
is  no  other  early  loss  which  works  such  havoc 
in  the  whole  life,  physically,  mentally,  and 
morally,  as  sexual  wastage  and  abuse. 

There  is  nothing  else  so  insidious,  so  fatal 
in  its  blasting,  blighting  influence  as  the  en- 
trance and  entertainment  of  the  first  impure 
thought,  the  performance  of  the  first  im- 
pure act.  Notice  how  quickly  deteriorating 
and  destructive  forces  begin  to  operate  on  a 
person  who  violates  the  laws  of  chastity  and 
purity.  In  a  few  months,  even  the  purest  girl 
may  become  lower  than  the  animals.  It  seems 
as  if  the  Creator  regards  the  integrity  of  this 
instinct,  upon  which  the  very  life,  character, 
and  destiny  of  the  race  depend,  as  so  sacred, 
and  has  placed  such  a  terrible  curse  upon  its 
degradation  that  there  is  no  human  evil  so 


178  The  Crime  of  Silence 

great  as  that  which  follows  its  violation  or 
abuse.  The  man  who  becomes  dishonest,  or 
even  commits  crime,  doesn't  become  so  thor- 
oughly demoralized,  animahzed,  brutalized, 
doesn't  stoop  so  low  as  he  who  violates  his 
sexual  integrity.  The  most  frightful  diseases 
known  to  mankind  are  never  generated  in  right 
living,  never  developed  among  people  who  live 
purely  and  cleanly ;  but  the  moment  human  be- 
ings transgress  the  sacred  law  of  chastity  they 
pay  an  awful  penalty,  the  price  of  body,  char- 
acter, and  soul  destruction. 

The  best  physicians  tell  us  that  there  is  noth- 
ing else  which  will  so  completely  deplete  and 
devitalize,  so  quickly  sap  that  strength  and  vi- 
tality which  could  otherwise  be  turned  into 
power  and  efficiency,  as  the  abuse  of  the  sacred 
sex  instinct.  Sacred,  I  say,  because  by  means 
of  it  the  Creator  has  made  man  his  partner 
in  the  perpetuation  of  the  race.  Sacred,  I  re- 
peat emphatically,  because  all  that  is  beauti- 
ful and  clean,  all  that  is  grandest  and  noblest 
in  life,  all  that  is  worth  while,  depends  upon  its 
integrity. 

Fathers  should  give  their  boys  specific  rea- 
sons for  the  necessity  of  living  chastely,  purely. 


Fathers  and  Sons  179 

They  should  show  them  that  they  cannot  from 
any  point  of  view  afford  to  be  devitalized. 
Most  boys  are  ambitious  to  make  physical  rec- 
ords, and  if  a  father  will  show  his  son  that  not 
only  will  his  spiritual  nature  be  ruined,  but  that 
nothing  else  will  so  fatally  sap  his  vital  energy 
and  physical  force  as  by  tampering  with  his 
sexual  instincts;  that  the  force  which  wins  in 
athletic  contests,  as  in  life's  battle,  will  be  seri- 
ously impaired,  and  that  he  who  indulges  in 
secret  sins  is  liable  to  become  a  physical  and 
mental  nobody,  unsexed,  he  will  make  a  lasting 
impression  on  his  boy's  mind. 

Teach  your  son  that  it  is  only  during  the 
years  when  the  sexual  function  is  intact,  during 
the  years  of  its  integrity,  that  men  achieve  any- 
thing worth  while;  show  him  that  men  who 
have  sapped  their  sexual  life  by  excesses  and 
abuses  have  become  partially  unsexed,  and  with 
the  unsexing  have  lost  their  mental  vigor,  their 
creative  energy,  that  force  which  is  back  of 
courage,  back  of  initiative,  back  of  all  power 
and  efficiency.  Point  out  to  him  that  to  the 
degree  in  which  a  man  becomes  emasculated 
does  he  lose  his  forceful  qualities  and  tend  to 
become  a  nobody.     Show  him  how  the  great 


180  The  Crime  of  Silence 

failure  army  is  full  of  these  devitalized,  emas- 
culated beings  who  have  lost  that  vitahty  which 
must  back  up  all  achievement,  that  creative 
force  which  is  the  secret  of  all  effectiveness,  re- 
sourcefulness, and  ingenuity.  Make  him  un- 
derstand that  executive  power  evaporates  with 
the  exhaustion  of  sexual  vitality. 

Stamp  it  indelibly  on  your  boy's  conscious- 
ness that  all  his  future,  his  success,  his  reputa- 
tion, his  happiness,  will  depend  upon  the  pre- 
servation of  his  physical  vigor.  Teach  him  that 
the  greatest  things  that  will  come  to  him  in  this 
world  are  husbandhood  and  fatherhood,  and 
that  his  future  wife's  happiness  and  well-being, 
his  children's  destiny, — what  life  will  mean  to 
them,  their  achievement,  their  happiness,  their 
welfare,  the  character  of  their  own  descendants, 
— are  in  no  small  degree  in  his  hands,  and  that 
all  these  immeasurably  important  things  de- 
pend mainly  upon  the  vigilance  with  which  he 
guards  the  purity  of  his  own  sexual  life. 

In  other  words,  show  him  that  just  in  pro- 
portion as  he  preserves  his  sexual  integrity  and 
purity  will  he  tend  to  become  a  complete,  full- 
rounded,  vigorous,  masterful  man. 

Some  fathers  seem  to  think  that  merely 


Fathers  and  Sons  181 


warning  their  sons  to  keep  away  from  vicious 
companions  will  protect  them  from  the  foul 
sources  of  contamination.  But  mere  "don'ts," 
negative  formulas,  will  never  safeguard  a 
youth.  The  only  way  to  protect  him  is  by  giv- 
ing him  positive  instruction  which  will  raise  his 
ideals,  increase  his  self-respect,  and  make  him 
think  more  of  himself. 

Without  giving  specific  reasons  such  as  I 
have  outlined,  to  which  many  more  might  be 
added,  a  father  might  preach  to  his  boy  until 
doomsday  about  the  thing  being  wrong,  and 
even  wicked,  and  yet  not  make  any  positive  or 
lasting  impression.  But  when  he  gives  him 
reasons  for  continence  which  appeal  to  him,  he 
makes  a  salutary  and  permanent  impression. 
This  is  where  the  father's  influence  especially 
comes  in,  because  no  mother  or  teacher,  how- 
ever affectionate  or  faithful,  can  put  herself  in 
a  position  to  really  appreciate  a  boy's  situa- 
tion. The  father  alone  can  fully  enter  into  it. 
He  alone  can  completely  realize  and  sympa- 
thize with  his  son's  feelings  during  his  danger- 
ous years. 

A  boy  who  is  properly  instructed  in  sex 
hygiene  will  resent  every  insult  to  a  woman,  no 


182  The  Crime  of  Silence 

matter  whose  daughter  or  sister  she  may  be; 
for  he  will  have  been  taught  to  reverence 
woman,  and  because  of  her  comparative  phys- 
ical weakness  to  consider  himself  her  natural 
protector.  He  will  regard  any  injury  to  a 
woman,  no  matter  what  her  class  or  condition, 
as  a  crime  against  womanhood,  and  also  against 
his  own  manhood.  He  will  never  forget  that 
one  who  contributes  to  a  girl's  ruin,  directly  or 
indirectly,  is  guilty  of  a  crime,  and  that  this 
crime  totally  unfits  him  for  marriage;  that  it 
mars  his  ideal  of  womanhood,  and  that  he  can 
never  have  quite  the  same  regard  for  women, 
can  never  quite  have  the  same  respect  for  them 
or  for  himself  as  before. 

The  father  worthy  of  his  fatherhood  should 
instil  into  his  boy's  mind  such  a  high  ideal  of 
womanhood,  such  a  profound  respect  for  her 
person,  that  any  suggestion  of  impurity  or  in- 
delicacy regarding  her  sex  nature  would  be  un- 
thinkable. He  should  teach  his  boy  how  won- 
derfully sacred  the  mother  instinct  is,  how  pure 
and  clean ;  and  how  imperative  it  is  for  his  own 
future  happiness,  for  the  welfare  of  the  home 
and  the  race,  to  protect  females  from  insult, 
from    abuse,    or    from    any    unholy    liberty. 


Fathers  and  Sons  183 

Every  boy  should  be  trained  with  the  idea  that 
he  is  the  protector  of  woman.  He  should  be  as 
ready  to  protect  any  other  woman  from  insult 
as  he  would  his  own  sister. 

In  other  words,  I  believe  that  it  is  possible 
to  train  a  boy  to  have  such  lofty  ideas  of  chiv- 
alry and  the  sacredness  of  the  female  sex  that 
unholy  desires  and  foul  passions  will  never 
master  him.  Every  time  he  is  tempted  to  do 
wrong,  the  image  of  his  ideal  of  the  girl  he 
hopes  some  time  to  make  his  wife,  will  stand 
out  before  him  and  so  shame  him  that  yielding 
to  wrong  will  be  unthinkable. 

Nothing  else  which  you  can  possibly  do  for 
your  boy  will  mean  so  much  to  his  future  as  to 
instil  into  the  very  marrow  of  his  being  the  re- 
solve to  come  to  his  wedding  day  with  his  ideal 
of  womanhood  as  pure  and  unstained  as  the 
driven  snow;  to  preserve  his  own  purity  as  the 
most  sacred  thing  in  his  life,  and  to  come  to  the 
altar  as  clean  in  mind  and  body  as  the  girl  he 
is  about  to  marry.  If  you  train  him  so  that, 
whenever  he  is  tempted  to  violate  the  sanctity 
of  the  sex  instinct,  he  will  bring  up  in  his 
mind's  eye  the  image  of  his  ideal  of  woman- 
hood, it  will  be  a  wonderful  help  in  the  prac- 


184  The  Crime  of  Silence 

tice  of  self-control.  It  will  kill  temptation 
and  make  him  ashamed  of  the  mere  thought  or 
suggestion  of  wrong-doing. 

Some  sins  are  unforgivable,  and  sexual  sin 
is  one  of  them.  The  destruction  of  another's 
character,  pushing  a  human  being  dowTi  to- 
wards degradation,  for  the  sake  of  a  temporary 
sinful  gratification,  is  a  crime  against  one's 
own  soul,  and  a  properly  instructed  youth  will 
understand  that  there  is  no  real  pleasure^  that 
there  can  be  none,  in  the  commission  of  such  a 
crime. 

If  any  of  you  fathers  find  that  your  son  has 
been  so  unfortunate  as  to  contract  the  habit  of 
self -abuse,  remember  that  he  is  in  a  perilous 
condition,  and  do  not  frighten  him  by  unneces- 
sary harshness.  He  is  already  suffering  all  he 
can  endure.  I  have  known  fathers  by  their 
cruelty  at  such  times  to  blot  out  all  hope  in 
their  boy's  mind  that  he  could  ever  get  relief 
from  his  trouble.  Yet  hope  and  expectation 
of  relief  are  absolutely  imperative,  and  often 
the  only  things  that  will  save  a  youth  in  such 
peril.  His  mind  is  already  depressed.  He  is 
melancholy  and  morose.  This  is  the  time  when 
he  needs  your  sympathy,  not  your  criticism, 


Fathers  and  Sons  185 

not  your  condemnation.  Do  not  condemn  him 
with  your  head ;  take  him  to  your  heart ;  advise 
him ;  get  his  confidence ;  show  him  that  you  can 
help  him.  Above  all  else,  keep  him  out  of  the 
hands  of  quacks! 

There  is  no  other  subject  which  so  troubles 
and  worries  the  average  youth  of  a  certain  age 
as  the  fear  that  something  is  the  matter  with 
his  sexual  life.  The  very  secrecy  which  sur- 
rounds it  tremendously  aggravates  his  worry, 
because  he  does  not  dare  consult  his  parents 
about  it.  Not  one  boy  in  a  thousand,  under 
such  circumstances,  would  frankly  go  to  *his 
father  for  advice,  for  he  feels  guilty;  and  he 
would  not  dare  to  go  to  an  older  friend,  or 
even  to  the  family  physician.  There  are 
medical  quacks  who  know  this  only  too  well, 
and  they  take  every  possible  advantage  of  his 
delicate  situation. 

There  are  thousands  of  parents  who  think 
that  their  boys  have  never  known  evil,  that 
they  can  not  by  any  possibility  be  contami- 
nated, and  yet  they  may  be  constantly  an- 
swering advertisements  concerning  "lost  vital- 
ity," "lost  manhood,"  and  the  "errors  of 
youth."     These  parents  little  realize  the  tr^- 


186  The  Crime  of  Silence 

mendous  harvest  which  the  quacks  are  reaping 
from  their  sons,  through  the  effects  of  their 
subtle  advertisements  and  criminal  literature 
describing  the  results  of  lost  manhood. 

Away  with  this  foolish  criminal  mask  of 
silence  which  leaves  your  son  at  the  mercy  of 
such  charlatans!  If  you  have  not  safe- 
guarded him  with  proper  instruction  at  the 
outset,  at  the  most  dangerous  period  in  his  life 
when  he  has  stood  tiptoe  on  the  threshold  of 
opening  manhood,  at  the  very  door  of  his 
future,  at  least  come  to  his  rescue  now  and  save 
him  from  becoming  a  victim  of  all  sorts  of 
quacks,  who  will  bleed  him,  mislead  him,  and 
possibly  drive  him  to  utter  ruin. 

Faith  in  womankind 
Beats  with  his  blood,  and  trust  in  all  things  high 
Comes  easy  to  him;  and,  though  he  trip  and  fall, 
He  shall  not  blind  his  soul  with  clay. 

— Alfred  Tennyson. 


CHAPTER  XI 

SOWING   WILD   OATS   AND   THE   HARVEST 

The  virtues  of  the  man  and  the  woman  are  the  same. 

— Antisthenes. 

I  am  ignorant  of  any  one  quality  that  is  admirable  in  woman 
which  is  not  equally  so  in  man !  I  do  not  except  even  modesty 
and  gentleness  of  nature;  nor  do  I  know  one  vice  or  folly  which 
Is  not  equally  destestable  in  both. — Dean  Swift. 

"Who  are  responsible  for  the  introduction 
of  venereal  diseases  into  marriage  and  the  con- 
sequent wreckage  of  the  hves  of  innocent  wives 
and  children?" 

Answering  his  own  interrogation  in  the  pre- 
ceding paragraph,  Dr.  Prince  Morrow  says, 
"As  a  rule,  men  who  have  presented  a  fair  ex- 
terior of  regular  and  correct  living, — often  the 
men  of  good  business  and  social  position, — the 
men  who,  indulging  in  what  they  regard  as  the 
harmless  dissipation  of  ^sowing  wild  oats,'  have 
contracted  syphilis." 

There  is  no  crime  followed  by  more  vicious 

187 


188  The  Crime  of  Silence 

consequences  than  that  which  has  been  desig- 
nated by  the  apparently  innocent  phrase, 
"sowing  wild  oats,"  nor  is  there  any  other  which 
has  hitherto  been  treated  so  indulgently  by 
society  or  been  so  lightly  regarded  for  the  most 
part  even  by  men  and  women  of  blameless  lives. 
In  fact,  people  have  seemed  to  consider  it  really 
necessary  for  young  men  to  get  this  experience 
and  to  believe  that  they  would  be  stronger  and 
wiser  for  it  afterwards.  We  might  as  well  say 
that  a  piece  of  marble  is  whiter  and  purer  be- 
cause there  is  an  ink  stain  on  it.  The  Agri- 
cultural Department  at  Washington  might  as 
well  advise  farmers  to  sow  weeds  or  thistles 
with  their  wheat  in  order  to  get  better  crops. 

Yet  many  youths  have  been  given  the  im- 
pression by  their  own  fathers,  or  by  physicians, 
or  have  gathered  from  something  they  have 
read,  that  for  health  reasons  they  should  grat- 
ify the  sexual  desire  in  the  best  way  they  can 
until  they  are  married. 

How  often  we  hear  intelligent,  educated 
fathers  indulgently  say  of  immoral  sons,  "Boys 
will  be  boys,  and  they  will  be  all  the  stronger 
for  sowing  their  wild  oats." 

The  idea  that  a  youth  would  be  better  fitted 


Sowing  Wild  Oats  189 

for  life,  would  be  stronger,  wiser,  more  normal, 
for  the  experience  of  sowing  his  wild  oats — 
that  is,  for  indulging  in  immorality,  in  vulgar- 
ity,— is  one  of  the  most  pernicious  and  fatal 
delusions  that  ever  crept  into  the  human  brain. 
The  father  who  thinks  his  boy  must  have  his 
wild-oats-sowing  season  in  order  to  become  a 
man  is  not  fit  to  bring  up  a  child,  and  the  State 
should  take  it  away  from  him. 

Yet  there  are  fathers  who  encourage  their 
boys  in  the  practice  of  immorality.  I  know  of 
a  noted  physician  who  wrote  his  son  in  Yale  ad- 
vising him,  for  the  sake  of  his  health,  to  find 
some  girl  in  New  Haven  with  whom  he  could 
practically  live  while  going  through  his 
academic  course!  A  father  who  would  give 
such  counsel  to  his  son  should  be  indicted  by  a 
grand  jury  for  soul  murder.  The  result  in 
this  instance  was  that  the  son  went  to  the  dogs, 
and  finally  loathed  his  father  for  the  criminal 
advice  that  ruined  his  health  and  his  career  at 
the  outset. 

Many  anpther  young  man,  while  sowing  his 
wild  oats,  has  formed  vicious  habits  which  have 
dogged  his  steps  and  handicapped  him  all  his 
life.     If  a  man  of  coarse  fiber,  he  has  probably 


190  The  Crime  of  Silence 

sunk  to  the  level  of  his  own  bestiality  and  has 
failed  to  realize  the  true  value  of  his  "might 
have  been," — of  the  higher,  better,  more  suc- 
cessful and  happier  life  which  he  has  lost.  But 
to  a  naturally  fine-grained  man,  under  such 
conditions,  life  often  seems  but  a  mockery, 
with  its  chalice  of  joy  presented  invitingly  to 
his  lips  only  to  be  dashed  rudely  away  and  shiv- 
ered to  fragments  by  the  demon  of  passion  who 
accompanies  him  everywhere.  He  may  put  on 
a  brave  front  to  the  world  and  to  others  seem 
even  happy,  but  to  himself  his  forced  laughter 
echoes  mockingly  and  drearily  through  the 
empty  chambers  of  his  soul.  Such  a  man 
might  well  exclaim  with  the  gifted  "poet  of 
remorse,"^ — 

Though  wit  may  flash  from  fluent  lips,  and  mirth  distract  the 
breast, 

Through  midni^t  hours  that  yield  no  more  their  former  hope 
of  rest; 

'Tis  but  as  ivy  leaves  around  the  ruined  turret  wreathe, 

lAll  green  and  wildly  fresh  without,  but  worn  and  gray  be- 
neath. 

A  great  many  boys  are  brought  up  with  the 
idea  that  it  is  not  very  sinful  to  visit  disorderly 
houses — that  it  is  not  a  millionth  part  as  bad  as 
the  seduction  of  a  pure,  innocent  girl.     I  have 


Sowing  Wild  Oats  191 

heard  fathers  say  that  they  would  rather  their 
sons  would  consort  with  fast  women,  that  they 
would  rather  that  they  should  seduce  innocent 
girls,  than  marry  socially  beneath  them.  One 
man  I  know  told  his  son  that  the  great  thing  to 
be  careful  about  was  not  to  get  caught  in  his 
escapades  with  women! 

Is  it  any  wonder  that  such  infamous  moral 
standards  and  such  base  teachings  as  these  not 
only  ruin  multitudes  of  boys,  but  also  imperil 
the  happiness  and  lives  of  a  multitude  of  un- 
fortunate girls  and  women? 

To  what  end  is  all  this?  The  monstrous 
fallacy  that  Nature  has  so  erred  in  her  con- 
struction of  man  that  he  should  become  lower 
in  the  scale  of  life  than  the  beasts  in  order  to 
conserve  health  is  exploded.  The  idea  that 
incontinence  is  a  health  preserver  for  young 
men  has  been  set  at  rest  for  all  time  by  many 
of  the  most  eminent  physicians  in  the  world. 
Sir  W.  R.  Gowers,  M.  D.,  F.R.S.,  lecturer  of 
the  Medical  Society  of  London,  says,  "The 
opinions  which  on  grounds  falsely  called 
^physiological'  suggest  or  permit  unchastity 
are  terribly  prevalent  among  young  men,  but 
they  are  absolutely  false.     I  assert  that  no  man 


192  The  Crime  of  Silence 

ever  yet  was  in  the  slightest  degree  or  way  the 
worse  for  continence  or  the  better  for  incon- 
tinence." 

Sir  Andrew  Clarke  emphatically  declares, 
* 'Continence  elevates  the  whole  nature,  in- 
creases energy,  and  sharpens  insight." 

Another  distinguished  physician  says,  *'It  is 
a  frequent  observation  instilled  into  the  young 
at  all  ages :  *I  am  told  it  is  very  bad  for  me  to 
be  continent;  my  health  will  suffer  from  it.' 
No  greater  lie  was  ever  invented.  It  is  simply 
a  base  invention  to  cover  sin,  and  has  no 
foundation  in  fact." 

In  the  Year  Book  of  the  National  Society 
for  the  Scientific  Study  of  Education  in  Eng- 
land we  find  this  significant  paragraph:  "We 
expect  of  physicians  explicit  and  positive  con- 
tradiction of  the  fallacy  current  among  men 
and  sometimes  sanctioned  by  medical  authori- 
ties that  sexual  continence  is  very  harmful  to 
health." 

Authoritative  statements  might  be  multi- 
plied not  only  to  bury  the  ancient  lie  that  un- 
chastity  makes  a  man  healthy,  but  also  to  prove 
that  its  effect  is  exactly  the  opposite. 

To  put  it  on  the  very  lowest  grounds,  I  am 


Sowing  Wild  Oats  193 

certain  that,  if  young  men  knew  and  realized 
the  fearful  risks  to  health  alone  that  they  run 
by  indulging  in  these  gross  impurities  and  dis- 
sipations known  as  sowing  wild  oats,  they 
would  put  them  by  with  a  shudder  of  disgust 
and  aversion. 

When  physicians  tell  young  men  who  have 
contracted  a  terrible  venereal  disease  that,  even 
with  constant  treatment,  there  is  no  possibility 
of  cure  in  less  than  three  or  four  years,  and 
that  they  may  never  be  cured,  the  sufferers 
often  give  way  to  utter  despair.  This  is  espe- 
cially true  of  young  men  who  are  about  to 
marry.  Many  of  them  lack  the  moral  stamina, 
the  courage  to  make  a  clean  breast  of  their 
troubles,  or  to  release  their  fiancee,  to  postpone 
their  marriage,  and  the  results  are  terrible  suf- 
fering, degradation,  and  often  death  from  the 
transmission  of  this  frightful  plague. 

Not  long  ago  a  young  man  in  an  agony  of 
remorse  and  shame  put  an  end  to  his  life  on  his 
wedding  day.  His  physician  had  told  him 
that,  owing  to  sexual  trouble,  he  was  in  no  con- 
dition to  marry,  and  that  he  must  postpone  his 
marriage.  But  the  wedding  day  was  fixed, 
and,  too  much  ashamed  to  tell  the  truth  to  the 


194  .         The  Crime  of  Silence 

girl  who  loved  and  trusted  him,  he  committed 
suicide  while  the  terrified  bride-to-be  waited 
at  the  altar. 

Another  tragic  case  is  told  by  a  prominent 
physician  who  was  invited  to  the  marriage  of  a 
beautiful  young  girl  whom  he  knew.  The 
marriage  was  to  be  a  fashionable  one,  and  so- 
ciety leaders  where  both  the  young  people  lived 
were  to  attend.  A  week  before  the  wedding, 
however,  the  young  man  had  been  "out  with 
the  fellows"  sowing  wild  oats,  celebrating  his 
last  days  of  bachelorhood.  Afterwards  he  had 
to  consult  a  physician,  who  did  not  tell  him 
that  he  must  postpone  his  marriage,  but  said 
that  marriage  for  him  at  any  time  would  be  a 
crime.  The  night  before  the  wedding  the 
young  man  shot  himself. 

So  lightly  has  this  crime  of  sowing  wild  oats 
been  treated,  and  so  ignorant  have  women  been 
kept  of  the  awful  enormity  of  the  consequences, 
that  it  is  not  unusual  to  hear  a  romantic  girl, 
who  mistakes  wickedness  for  manliness,  say, 
in  speaking  of  a  man,  "Oh,  he  is  too  good.  I 
like  a  fellow  who  has  sown  his  wild  oats,  who 
has  had  some  experience,  who  has  seen  life.  I 
have  no  use  for  the  man  *who  knows  nothing  of 


Sowing  Wild  Oats  195 

the  world,'  Vho  has  been  brought  up  in  a  cage, 
tied  to  his  mother's  apron  strings.'  " 

How  Uttle  do  such  romantic  girls,  how  little 
do  any  girls  or  women,  realize  what  they  do 
when  they  marry  impure,  immoral  men.  How 
ignorant  they  are  of  the  true  meaning  of  sow- 
ing wild  oats, — how  little  they  dream  what 
frightful  harvests  are  bound  to  follow  the  sow- 
ing. 

Indeed,  in  the  long  run,  they  are  the  greatest 
sufferers,  for  one  of  the  most  terrible  results  of 
the  sowing  of  wild  oats  is  the  hideous  after- 
math of  suffering  inflicted  on  innocent,  unsus- 
pecting women  and  their  yet  unborn  children. 

A  distinguished  physician  estimated  that  a 
large  percentage  of  all  the  operations  per- 
formed by  specialists  in  diseases  of  women  in 
this  country  are  the  result  of  venereal  infec- 
tion, and  that  an  equal  percentage  of  all  the 
deaths  due  to  inflammatory  diseases  peculiar 
to  women  are  the  result  of  this  infection. 

In  multitudes  of  cases  trusting  young  wives 
have  suffered  untold  tortures  from  vile  dis- 
eases communicated  to  them  by  their  husbands 
who  had  contracted  them  while  sowing  wild 
oats  in  their  youth.     Formerly  the  helpless  viq- 


196  The  Crime  or  Silence 

tims  were  kept  in  ignorance  of  the  real  facts  by 
male  physicians  who  would  not  reveal  to  them 
the  cause  of  their  suffering  and  the  disfigure- 
ment of  their  unfortunate  children. 

It  is  well  known  that  mental  deficiency  in 
children,  and  every  kind  of  physical  deformity, 
even  the  birth  of  monstrosities,  are  a  part  of 
the  harvest  reaped  from  the  wild  oats  sow- 
ing. 

In  twenty-seven  months  over  six  hundred 
children,  the  victims  of  a  loathsome  disease  in- 
herited from  their  fathers,  passed  through  the 
most  piteous  children's  ward  in  a  Chicago  hos- 
pital. All  but  twenty-nine  of  these  children 
were  under  ten  years  of  age,  "and,"  said  Jane 
Addams,  "doubtless  a  number  of  them  had 
been  victims  of  that  wretched  tradition  that  a 
man  afflicted  with  this  incurable  disease  might 
cure  himself  at  the  expense  of  innocence."  It 
is  a  well  known  fact  that  thousands  of  children 
who  are  born  blind  or  become  blind  at  birth 
suffer  this  ghastly  affliction  because  of  their 
fathers'  sins. 

How  can  a  man  face  an  innocent  child  who 
bears  in  its  body  the  evidences  of  his  unlawful 
passions,  who  must  carry  through  life  the  curse 


Sowing  Wild  Oats  197 

of  his  sin,  without  loathing  himself?  A  large 
part  of  the  insane  and  criminal  class,  the  sexual 
perverts,  the  idiots,  the  imbeciles,  the  physi- 
cally defective,  and  tens  of  thousands  of  in- 
valids are  such  because  of  this  sin  of  sins. 

Everywhere  we  see  wretched,  innocent  chil- 
dren whose  lives  will  be  crippled  or  totally 
wrecked  because  of  their  father's  sin.  Many 
of  them  are  dwarfed,  deformed,  and  have  phys- 
ical or  mental  defects,  or  idiosyncracies  which 
will  follow  them  through  life.  Verily,  the  sins 
of  the  fathers  are  visited  upon  the  children,  and 
the  children's  children. 

Think,  too,  of  the  unhappy  mother,  who 
must  often  endure  the  double  agony  of  suffer- 
ing herself — often  undergoing  surgical  mutila- 
tion,— and  seeing  her  children  suffer ! 

Miss  Addams  cites  a  pathetic  case  of  a  wid- 
owed mother  in  Chicago  afflicted  with  a  terrible 
disease  which  she  had  contracted  from  her  hus- 
band. The  unfortunate  mother  was  so  terri- 
fied for  fear  of  spreading  the  infection  to  her 
children  that  she  offered  to  leave  them  forever 
if  there  was  no  other  way  to  save  them  from 
the  horrible  suffering  she  herself  was  enduring. 

The  number  of  young  women  whose  health 


198  The  Crime  of  Silence 

has  been  wrecked  by  marrying  immoral  men 
will  never  be  known.  "How  dismal,"  says  Dr. 
Valentine,  "is  the  history  of  many  a  young 
woman  who  marries  with  all  the  accompani- 
ments of  a  wedding  celebration.  From  their 
husbands'  latent  disease  many  of  them  contract 
conditions  which  alter  their  lives  and  even  their 
characters.  They  suffer  from  backache,  uri- 
nary disorders,  localized  peritonitis,  loss  of  their 
healthful  beauty,  lassitude,  hysteria,  sterility, 
miscarriages,  or  death." 

Refen^ng  more  fully  to  the  awful  danger 
the  wife  runs  of  being  infected  by  an  immoral 
husband,  Christabel  Pankhurst,  in  "Plain 
Facts  About  a  Great  Evil,"  quotes  Dr. 
Prince  Morrow,  who  says:  "'The  condi- 
tions created  by  the  marriage  relation  ren- 
der the  wife  a  helpless  and  unresisting  victim. 
The  matrimonial  bond  is  a  chain  which  binds 
and  fetters  the  woman  completely,  making  her 
the  passive  recipient  of  the  germs  of  any  sexual 
disease  her  husband  may  harbor.  On  her 
wedding  night  she  may,  and  often  does,  receive 
unsuspectingly  the  poison  of  a  disease  which 
may  seriously  affect  her  health  and  kill  her 
children,  or,  by  extinguishing  her  capacity  for 


Sowing  Wild  Oats  199 

conception,  may  sweep  away  all  the  most  cher- 
ished hopes  and  aspirations  of  married  life. 
She  is  an  innocent  in  every  sense  of  the 
word.  She  is  incapable  of  foreseeing,  power- 
less to  prevent  this  injury.  She  often  pays 
with  her  life  for  her  blind  confidence  in  the 
man  who  ignorantly  or  carelessly  passes  over 
to  her  a  disease  which  he  has  received  from  a 
prostitute.  The  victims  are  for  the  most  part 
young  and  virtuous  women, — idolized  daugh- 
ters, the  very  flower  of  womankind.'  " 

It  would  be  hard  to  name  a  crime  so  das- 
tardly as  for  a  man  deliberately  to  defile  and 
poison  the  body  of  the  clean,  sweet  girl  who 
loves  and  marries  him;  deliberately  to  inflict 
upon  his  children  a  foul  disease, — deformity, 
idiocy,  premature  death.  Yet  this  is  done, 
with  a  frequency  which  has  at  length  aroused 
our  best  physicians  to  the  struggle  for  public 
enlightenment  and  protection. 

A  prominent  physician,  invited  by  the  editor 
of  The  Ladies'  Home  Journal  to  produce 
statistics  on  the  sex  question,  says  that  there 
are  more  than  eight  million  people  in  the 
United  States  to-day  suffering  from  the  direct 
or  indirect  infection  of  sexual  diseases :  that  in 


200  The  Crime  of  Silence 

New  York  City  alone  there  are  many,  many 
thousand  men  and  women  afflicted,  to  say 
nothing  of  little  girls  of  five  and  ten  years  of 
age  who  are  cursed  with  the  germs  of  some 
of  those  loathsome  diseases.  The  great  white 
plague,  according  to  this  authority,  is  a  mere 
incident  as  compared  with  the  great  black 
plague.  "The  horrible  and  distressing  opera- 
tions upon  innocent  wives,"  he  says,  "the  in- 
creasing sterility  of  married  women,  can  be  ex- 
plained and  avoided.  The  ruin  of  many  inno- 
cent boys  and  girls  who  come  in  contact  with 
the  germs  scattered  round  them  can  be 
stopped."  He  further  states,  "When  I  add 
that  over  eight  out  of  ten  young  men  from  fif- 
teen to  thirty  years  of  age  are  suffering  from 
the  direct  or  indirect  causes  of  this  sexual  sin, 
that  thirty-five  per  cent,  of  these  cases  will 
bring  mother,  grandmother,  or  children  to  the 
hospital,  to  early  graves,  you  will  agree  that  it 
is  absolutely  necessary  to  speak  plainly." 

Much  of  this  terrible  suffering  of  innocent 
women  and  children  is  due  to  what  is  called 
professional  etiquette  among  physicians. 
Multitudes  of  men  have  hitherto  been  shielded 
in  their  damnable  immorality  by  physicians  un- 


Sowing  Wild  Oats  201 

der  the  pretext  of  this  shibboleth  of  profes- 
sional etiquette.  They  are  bound  to  report  to 
the  Board  of  Health  cases  of  such  compara- 
tively innocent  diseases  as  measles  or  chicken 
pox.  If- a  case  of  smallpox,  cholera,  or  some 
other  virulent  disease  were  not  promptly  re- 
ported to  the  health  authorities  and  all  neces- 
sary precautions  taken  to  prevent  the  spread  of 
the  contagion,  there  would  be  a  popular  outcry. 
If  a  person  is  found  infected  with  leprosy,  the 
whole  country  is  up  in  arms,  and  the  unfortu- 
nate and  wholly  innocent  sufferer  is  driven 
from  the  community,  isolated  from  civilization. 
But,  simply  because  men,  not  men  and  women, 
make  the  laws,  physicians  are  not  obliged  to 
report  cases  of  moral  leprosy,  the  foulest  and 
most  deadly  of  all  diseases. 

One  of  the  most  horrible  features  of  moral 
leprosy  is  the  appalling  facility  with  which  its 
physical  contagion  is  conveyed  to  the  inno- 
cent. 

Not  long  ago  a  very  suave  and  attractive 
young  man  on  leaving  a  social  gathering  in 
Philadelphia  kissed  the  hands  of  the  five  young 
ladies  who  had  been  his  dancing  partners  dur- 
ing the  evening.     In  a  short  time  all  five  de- 


202  The  Crime  of  Silence 

veloped  a  hideous  venereal  disease  which  has 
made  their  marriage  practically  impossible, 
and  ruined  not  only  their  potential  mother- 
hood, but,  practically,  their  lives. 

In  innumerable  cases  fathers  have  communi- 
cated this  disease  to  their  children  by  kissing 
and  fondling  them.  It  has  been  passed  along 
through  the  exchange  of  lead-pencils,  by  put- 
ting them  in  the  mouth,  by  the  use  of  towels, 
and  in  countless  other  ways.  Yet  the  moral 
lepers  are  allowed  to  go  unchecked  on  their 
death  dealing  way. 

The  ethics  of  the  medical  profession  in  re- 
gard to  cloaking  the  resultant  evils  of  man's 
immorality  are,  however,  rapidly  undergoing 
a  great  change,  and  the  physician  of  the  future 
who  protects  the  reputation  of  a  moral  leper, 
at  the  expense  of  his  unsuspecting  and  helpless 
victims,  will  be  boycotted  by  all  decent  people. 
He  will  be  regarded  as  accessory  before  the 
fact  in  contributing  to  the  defilement  and  suf- 
fering of  innocent  beings.  The  reputable 
physician  of  to-morrow  is  not  going  to  help  the 
tainted  to  spread  the  contagion  of  the  vilest 
of  diseases.  Even  though  the  man-made  laws 
support  him  in  concealing  the  truth,  he  will  not 


Sowing  Wild  Oats  203 

remain  tongue-tied  regarding  moral  leprosy 
when  he  is  in  duty  bound  to  the  public  to  re- 
port cases  of  measles. 

But  the  average  old-time  physician  is  horri- 
fied at  the  very  idea  of  making  public  a  state- 
ment in  regard  to  the  health  of  a  patient  which 
would  injure  the  patient's  reputation.  To 
divulge  a  professional  secret  is  dishonorable. 
But  there  is  no  hesitation  in  making  public  the 
knowledge  of  any  other  crime,  however  much  it 
may  reflect  on  the  reputation  of  the  criminal. 

Knowledge  of  any  other  crime  against  so- 
ciety, any  other  disease  than  this,  which  in- 
volves secret  sin,  is  not  regarded  as  a  profes- 
sional secret.  The  doctor  who  would  conceal 
the  truth  about  a  murder  or  a  robbery  because 
the  perpetrator  happened  to  be  a  patient  of  his 
would  rightly  be  regarded  as  an  enemy  of  so- 
ciety. Why  should  the  crime  of  silence  in  re- 
gard to  an  offence  which  destroys  the  soul  as 
well  as  the  body  of  the  offender  himself,  and 
causes  untold  suffering,  perhaps  death  to 
others,  be  countenanced  by  the  law  and  the 
medical  profession? 

It  is  about  time  that  the  curse  of  secret  im- 
morality should  be  dragged  out  of  its  hiding 


204  The  Crime  of  Silence 

place  and  exposed  to  the  light.  If  every  phy- 
sician was  compelled  by  law — and  it  is  a  crime 
against  society  that  he  is  not, — to  be  truthful 
in  these  matters,  this  black  plague  of  sexual 
immorality,  with  its  evil  progeny,  would  be 
tremendously  circumscribed.  If  every  young 
man,  every  husband  and  father,  knew  that  his 
secret  sin  would  be  made  public,  that  he  would 
be  disgraced  in  the  eyes  of  his  family,  his  com- 
munity, there  would  be  comparatively  few 
male — or  female — prostitutes.  If  the  sex  that 
suffers  most  from  this  great  social  pest  had  a 
voice  in  making  the  laws  that  pertain  to  it,  it 
would  quickly  be  put  under  a  penalty  equal  to 
its  enormity.  If  there  was  no  other  reason  for 
giving  the  vote  to  women,  this  one  would  be 
sufficient.  Men  will  never  legislate  against 
their  own  sexual  sins.  There  will  always  be 
immunity  for  the  sexual  criminal  until  woman 
gets  the  power  locked  up  in  the  ballot. 

Already  women  physicians  and  women's 
organizations  have  succeeded  in  two  states, 
Iowa  and  Vermont,  in  securing  the  passage  of 
a  law  which  requires  a  physician  to  report  a 
case  of  venereal  disease  to  the  Board  of  Health 


Sowing  Wild  Oats  205 

as  he  does  a  ease  of  smallpox,  diphtheria,  scar- 
let fever  or  measles.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  all 
the  other  states  in  the  Union  will  quickly  fol- 
low the  example  set  by  Iowa  and  Vermont. 

One  of  the  most  unfortunate  things  about 
the  sowing  of  wild  oats  is  that  the  practice, 
when  once  started, — ^whose  only  excuse,  let  it 
not  be  forgotten,  is  celibacy, — is  continued  by 
a  large  majority  of  men  after  marriage  and 
continued  not  infrequently  all  through  their 
married  life. 

It  is  a  strange  fact  that  even  many  men  who 
lead  exemplary  lives  at  home,  and  who  are  care- 
ful not  to  do  anything  which  can  bring  pain  to 
their  families,  throw  off  their  restraint  when 
they  are  away  from  home,  in  distant  cities,  and 
especially  when  traveling  abroad,  and  do  all 
sorts  of  immoral  things  which  nothing  could 
induce  them  to  do  in  their  own  little  village  or 
small  town. 

A  painful  instance  of  this  was  brought  to 
light  not  long  ago  in  a  large  Eastern  city,  when 
a  man  regarded  as  a  pillar  of  the  church  and  of 
society  in  his  own  town  was  discovered  to  be 
habitually  leading  a  "double  life"  when  away 


206  The  Crime  of  Silence 

from  home.  Cases  of  this  kind  are  all  too  fre- 
quent among  so-called  reputable  men. 

The  fear  of  public  opinion  keeps  many  men 
of  indifferent  virtue  straight  in  small  towns. 
They  have  a  terror  of  gossip  and  are  afraid  of 
possible  social  scandal.  Pride  of  their  stand- 
ing in  the  community,  and  especially  of  their 
position  in  the  church,  is  a  constant  restraining 
influence.  The  wrong  done  to  wife  and  chil- 
dren sits  lightly  on  their  conscience,  but  they 
are  held  in  check  by  fear  of  what  their  neigh- 
bors will  say.  The  majority  of  men  would  be 
polygamous  but  for  the  restraining  influence 
of  their  egotism  and  the  fear  of  the  Mrs. 
Grundy  of  their  small  community,  but  when 
they  go  into  strange  cities  they  feel  a  sense  of 
freedom,  and,  under  cover  of  secrecy  and  the 
practical  certainty  that  no  one  at  home  will 
ever  know  what  they  have  done,  they  give 
license  to  their  grosser  nature. 

This  is  well  known  to  purveyors  of  vice,  and 
many  of  the  questionable  things  which  are 
shown  sightseers  in  large  cities  are  maintained 
largely  for  the  sightseers  themselves.  The 
city    people    do    not    patronize    them   much. 


Sowing  Wild  Oats  207 

Many  indecent  places  in  the  city  of  Paris  are 
kept  up  mainly  for  tourists,  and  are  patron- 
ized, largely,  by  men  who  are  quite  decent  in 
their  home  towns. 

Men  from  the  country  and  from  out-of-town 
places  who  visit  houses  of  prostitution  in  the 
cities  little  realize  how  much  they  contribute 
to  the  awful  degradation  of  women.  But  re- 
member, my  friends,  who  loosen  up  your  morals 
when  you  go  away  from  home,  that  every  poor 
girl  you  find  in  any  of  those  vile  places  is  some- 
body's daughter,  may  be  somebody's  sister,  as 
dear  to  some  father  or  mother  as  your  daughter 
is  to  you  or  your  wife,  that  her  life  is  just  as 
sacred  in  the  eyes  of  her  Maker  as  the  lives  of 
your  own  sisters  and  mother.  Do  not  forget 
that  most  prostitutes  were  innocent  victims 
lured  to  brothels  to  gratify  men's  base  passions. 

Do  not  think,  because  you  are  away  from 
home,  that  you  are  away  from  responsibility, 
that  you  can  get  away  from  the  inexorable  laws 
of  nature  and  virtue.  If  you  break  them  any- 
where in  the  universe,  you  must  pay  the  price 
of  a  stain  upon  your  manhood,  the  loss  of  self- 
respect,  the  acquirement  of  personal  degrada- 


208  The  Crime  of  Silence 

tion  from  which  you  can  never  escape.  You 
have  contributed  to  the  downfall  of  human  be- 
ings. You  have  contributed  to  the  havoc  of 
their  deplorable  lives,  to  their  wretchedness, 
their  demorahzation.  You  are  personally  re- 
sponsible. You  are  an  accomplice  in  their 
ruin,  j^ou  are  in  league  with  their  murderers. 

Do  not  hypnotize  yourself  with  the  idea  that, 
when  away  from  home,  you  can  drop  your 
moral  standards,  draw  a  curtain  over  your 
ideals,  drag  those  whom  you  are  bound  by 
every  law  of  your  being  to  protect  down  to 
lower  depths,  and  then  return  to  your  innocent 
and  trusting  families  thinking  that  these 
wretched  girls  mean  nothing  to  you  because 
they  happen  to  be  strangers.  No;  you  can- 
not escape  the  consequences  of  your  sin.  It 
may  come  back  to  mock  you  in  the  ruin  of  your 
own  innocent  daughter  or  sister  in  some  resort 
of  vice.  In  some  way  or  other  it  will  again 
and  again  meet  you  face  to  face. 

Theosophists  believe  that  the  man  who 
wrongs  a  woman,  who  debauches  the  souls  of 
others,  is  in  the  life  beyond  the  grave  perpetu- 
ally tormented  by  the  spirits  of  those  whom  he 
had  injured  on  earth,  that  they  never  cease 


Sowing  Wild  Oats  209 

following  him  until  his  soul  is  purged  and  puri- 
fied by  frightful  suffering. 

Whether  we  agree  with  this  theory  or  not,  we 
can  not  blind  ourselves  to  the  truth  that  there 
is  certainly  some  place  and  time  for  the  squar- 
ing of  all  our  accounts.  We  know  that  the 
universe  is  governed  by  scientific  laws ;  we  know 
that  not  an  infinitesimal  particle  of  matter  in 
this  world  is  ever  lost,  and  that  every  cause  has 
its  legitimate  effect.  Man  can  not  escape  the 
working  of  the  universal  law.  It  is  just  as 
certain  as  doom  that  those  men  who  even  con- 
tribute to  woman's  ruin  must  sometime,  some- 
where suffer  the  just  punishment  of  their  acts. 
People  who  know  him  in  this  world  may  know 
nothing  of  his  damnable  acts,  but  the  soul  that 
sins,  no  matter  how  he  covers  up  his  crimes, 
shall  ultimately  pay  their  fearful  price.  In 
view  of  all  this,  the  theosophic  theory  does  not 
seem  unreasonable,  albeit  the  sexual  sinner  does 
not  have  to  go  to  the  world  beyond  to  reap  the 
consequences  of  his  acts. 

Lecky,  the  historian,  speaking  of  the  un- 
fortunate woman,  the  victim  of  man's  lust, 
says,  "She  is  the  most  mournful  and  the  most 
awful  figure  in  history.     She  remains  while 


210  The  Crime  of  Silence 

creeds  and  civilizations  rise  and  fall, — the 
eternal  sacrifice  of  humanity,  blasted  for  the 
sins  of  the  people." 

How  much  longer  will  society  sanction  this 
blot  on  our  civilization?  How  much  longer 
shall  we  continue  to  have  sex  in  sin? — to  stone 
the  woman  and  let  the  man  go  free,  and  thus 
perpetuate  the  presence  of  "the  most  mournful 
and  the  most  awful  figure  in  history"? 

It  is  "up  to"  this  generation,  now  that  the 
light  of  knowledge  and  truth  has  been  turned 
on  the  dark  places,  to  see  to  it  that  men's  self- 
ish, animal  desires  shall  not  continue  to  blast 
a  large  proportion  of  the  very  flower  of  the 
human  race. 

The  sowing  of  wild  oats,  with  its  frightful 
harvest  of  human  misery,  degradation,  crime, 
and  death,  must  go. 


CHAPTER  XII 

MEDICAL   QUACKS   AND    "lOST   MANHOOD" 

Give  me  that  man 
That  is  not  passion's  slave,  and  I  will  wear  him 
In  my  heart's  core,  ay,  in  my  heart  of  hearts. 

— Shakespeahe. 

There  is  a  story  of  a  certain  man  afflicted 
with  a  painful  disease  who  had  traveled  far  and 
wide  in  search  of  a  cure,  and  tried  all  sorts  of 
remedies  and  physicians  without  avail.  One 
night  he  dreamed  that  a  Presence  came  to  him 
and  said,  "Brother,  hast  thou  tried  all  the 
means  of  cure?"  The  man  replied,  "I  have 
tried  all."  "Nay,"  said  the  Presence,  "come 
with  me,  and  I  will  show  thee  a  healing  bath 
which  has  escaped  thy  notice."  The  afflicted 
man  followed,  and  the  Presence  led  him  to  a 
clear  pool  of  water,  and  said,  "Plunge  thyself 
in  this  water  and  thou  shalt  surely  recover," 
and  thereupon  he  vanished.  The  man  plunged 
into  the  water,  and,  on  coming  out,  lo!  his  dis- 
ease had  left  him,  and  at  the  same  moment  he 

211 


212  The  Crime  of  Silence 

saw  written  above  the  pool  the  word  ''Re- 
nounce/' 

Now  all  this  time  the  man  had  been  harbor- 
ing a  secret  sin,  but  in  the  clear,  cleansing 
waters  of  the  pool  he  had  renounced  it, — ^and 
was  healed. 

Renunciation  is  the  price  of  a  strong,  clean 
character,  a  noble  manhood.  If  you  would 
wear  "the  white  flower  of  a  blameless  life,"  you 
must  renounce  the  things  that  lead  to  sin,  you 
must  keep  away  from  the  things  that  would 
stain  your  manhood,  smirch  your  honor. 

Speaking  of  his  youth,  when  other  young 
fellows  wanted  him  to  be  "one  of  the  boys,"  "to 
take  a  drink,"  Edison  said,  "I  thought  I  had 
a  better  use  for  my  brain.  I  wanted  all  the 
brain  power  I  could  get.  I  wanted  to  increase 
the  efficiency  of  my  life  and  not  diminish  it, 
not  demoralize  and  benumb  it.  I  did  not  want 
to  take  into  my  mouth  an  enemy  to  steal  away 
my  brain.  I  wanted  to  do  the  things  which 
would  increase,  not  diminish  my  brain  power; 
which  would  increase,  not  lessen,  my  possibili- 
ties ;  which  would  increase  and  not  destroy  my 
resources ;  something  which  would  increase  my 
powers  of  investigation,  of  discovery;  some- 


Quacks  and  "Lost  Manhood"      213 

thing  which  would  increase  my  inventive  abil- 
ity, not  destroy  it,  and  I  said  to  myself:  *I 
will  let  that  greatest  enemy  of  the  race,  that 
enemy  which  has  taken  hold  of  more  men  and 
women,  ruined  more  careers,  destroyed  more 
happiness,  than  anything  else  in  the  world, 
alone.'" 

There  are  several  places  in  the  world  where 
clean,  pure  rivers  empty  into  other  rivers  which 
drain  large  factory  districts.  The  water  in  the 
latter  is  contaminated  with  all  sorts  of  chemi- 
cals and  refuse  from  the  factories.  It  is  turgid 
and  dirty.  For  long  distances  those  rivers 
sometimes  run  side  by  side  with  quite  clean-cut 
lines  of  demarcation  between  the  pure  and  the 
filthy;  but  gradually,  as  they  flow  down  to- 
wards the  sea,  they  mingle,  and  after  a  while 
the  pure  stream  is  lost.  The  filthy,  muddy 
stream  has  absorbed  and  contaminated  every 
drop  of  the  pure  water. 

How  often  we  see  a  similar  thing  in  human 
life ;  where  the  muddy,  turgid,  filthy  stream  of 
impure  associations  contaminates,  arid  finally 
absorbs,  the  stream  of  purity  and  innocence 
running  beside  it  until  both  streams  merge  into 
one  black  and  murky  river. 


214  The  Crime  of  Silence 

If  you  have  been  so  unfortunate  as  to  be- 
come soiled  by  contact  with  such  a  foul  stream, 
don't  lose  heart  and  think  there  is  no  hope  of 
purging  yourself  of  your  uncleanness.  Above 
all  else,  don't  go  to  sexual  quacks,  or  resort  to 
remedies  suggested  in  their  advertisements. 

Tens  of  thousands  of  young  men  are  being 
seriously  injured  through  the  influence  of  these 
advertisements,  which  delineate  in  the  most 
subtle  and  suggestive  language  the  terrible  con- 
sequences of  sexual  perversion.  Frequently 
their  authors  slyly  distribute  little  booklets  on 
the  street,  when  there  are  no  policemen  about, 
— for  their  distribution  is  against  the  law, — 
under  the  guise  of  memorandum  books,  but 
which  really  contain  poisonous  descriptions  of 
the  awful  results  of  youthful  error  and  the  dis- 
eases resulting  from  sexual  sin. 

All  these  medical  blackguards  are  "out  for 
the  cash."  They  have  not  the  slightest  re- 
gard for  the  welfare  of  the  young  man  about 
whom  they  seem  so  solicitous,  and  they  v/ill 
rob  him  of  his  last  penny  without  a  shadow  of 
compunction.  I  have  known  many  instances 
where  they  have  advised  youths  to  borrow 
money,  or  even  sell  their  belongings  rather  than 


Quacks  and  "Lost  Manhood"      215 

take  the  awful  consequences  that  thej^  are  as- 
sured would  follow  non-treatment.  I  have 
known  college  boys  to  pawn  clothing,  pledge 
their  books,  and  borrow  money  of  their  student 
friends,  ostensibly  for  other  purposes,  but  in 
reality  to  secure  the  "cure-all"  remedy  or  to 
get  the  wonderful  "advice"  described  in  these 
subtle  advertisements,  which  frighten  away  the 
peace  and  happiness  of  thousands  of  splendid 
boys  who,  perhaps,  have  made  a  single  false 
step  under  great  temptation,  but  who,  at  heart, 
are  clean  and  pure. 

The  quacks  tell  these  victims  of  youthful 
error  that  loss  of  vitality  thus  caused  is  more 
fatal  than  many  times  the  same  amount  of 
blood  drawn  directly  from  the  heart, — just  as 
if  blood  drawn  directly  from  the  heart  is  worse 
than  if  drawn  from  the  foot!  They  describe 
in  lurid  colors  the  symptoms  of  lost  vigor,  of 
lost  manhood,  and  other  evils  which  follow  sex- 
ual sin.  So  vividly  do  they  picture  these 
things  and  so  seductively  do  they  work  upon  the 
youthful  imagination  that  the  victim  is  con- 
stantly watching  for  and  expecting  predicted 
symptoms,  until  sometimes  his  mind  actually 
becomes  unbalanced.     In  many  cases  the  per- 


216  The  Crime  of  Silence 

plexed  youth  is  cursed  with  mind  wandering. 
He  can  not  focus  his  attention  upon  his  studies 
or  his  work.  His  parents  and  teachers  can  not 
imagine  what  is  the  matter  with  him,  for  they 
do  not  see  the  worm  that  is  eating  its  way  into 
his  heart  and  slowly  blighting  the  young  life 
long  before  it  comes  to  maturity. 

While  the  consequences  of  continued  sexual 
indiscretions  can  hardly  be  overrated,  there  is 
probably  not  the  least  warrant  or  justification 
for  a  hundredth  part  of  the  worry  and  the 
wretched  anxiety  of  these  unhappy  youths. 
Their  fears  are  worked  upon  by  the  criminal 
quack  advertisements  and  the  literature  of  the 
blackguards  who  are  bleeding  them.  These 
vile  advertisers  become  experts  in  fishing  for 
"suckers."  They  know  how  to  put  out  the 
tempting  bait ;  and,  when  the  victims  are  finally 
drawn  into  a  quack's  office,  he  says  to  himself: 
"Just  as  I  expected.  Those  advertisements 
did  the  work." 

These  medical  quacks  describe  the  symptoms 
of  the  victim  of  self-abuse  in  terms  something 
like  the  following,  "Confused  mentality  in  the 
morning,  dizziness  on  rising,  a  bad  taste  in  the 
mouth,  a  wandering  mind,  inability  to  focus 


Quacks  and  "Lost  Manhood"      217 

the  thought  and  to  hold  it  upon  a  certain  sub- 
ject. Nervousness,  despondency,  a  feeling  of 
debility,  and  general  lack  of  energy,  ambition, 
and  life."  "Solitariness"  is  also  one  of  the 
symptoms  that  they  emphasize,  an  inclination 
to  remain  by  oneself,  to  shun  people. 

Now  these  are  common  symptoms  of  almost 
every  boy  and  girl  during  the  years  of  rapid 
growth,  when  marvelous  changes  are  taking 
place  in  the  brain  and  all  the  functions  of  the 
body.  Even  the  purest,  cleanest  boys  in  the 
world  are  liable  to  be  affected  in  the  way  de- 
scribed when  the  physical  and  mental  develop- 
ments in  every  part  of  the  system  are  so  tre- 
mendous. 

Of  course  the  quacks  do  not  confine  them- 
selves to  enumerating  such  simple  and  general 
symptoms  of  puberty  as  these.  They  know 
very  well  that  there  is  a  close  connection  be- 
tween the  sexual  functions  and  the  brain,  so 
that,  whenever  there  is  any  trouble  with  the 
sexual  life,  the  brain  is  seriously  affected,  and 
this  very  fact  gives  them  a  double  hold  upon 
young  minds.  They  know  how  to  picture  in 
their  damnable  literature  the  fatal  results  of 
youthful  abuse  and  sexual  indiscretions  and 


218  The  Crime  of  Silence 

sins.  Consequently,  those  who  have  any  mis- 
givings in  regard  to  themselves  fall  easy  victims 
to  their  nefarious  appeals. 

I  have  known  boys  in  schools  and  colleges  to 
be  so  terrified  with  fear  that  they  might  be  sex- 
ually ruined  that  they  have  not  been  able  to 
concentrate  their  minds,  have  fallen  behind  in 
their  classes,  and  in  many  instances  have  been 
obliged  to  drop  their  studies  and  go  home. 
Some  youths  even  become  insane,  and  their 
parents  have  thought  all  along  that  the  whole 
trouble  was  due  to  overwork  or  ordinary  phys- 
ical ailments. 

I  wish  it  were  possible  to  reach  every  youth 
in  the  land  to  bid  them  beware  of  the  authors 
and  purveyors  of  such  literature. 

They  are  not  in  the  business  for  the  good  of 
your  health,  my  young  friends,  but  for  the 
good  of  their  own  pocketbooks.  Their  liter- 
ature is  designed  to  make  you  think  that  they 
are  extremely  anxious  to  help  you, — that 
they  want  to  save  you  from  self-destruction. 
They  are  well  aware  how  sensitive  you  are 
about  this  subject,  and  how  your  fears  are 
aroused,  even  if  there  has  been  in  your  con- 
duct not  the  least  cause  for  worry.     But  they 


Quacks  and  "Lost  Manhood*'      219 

know  that,  if  you  have  the  remotest  suspicion 
that  anything  is  wrong  with  you,  you  will  be 
an  easy  victim  to  their  insinuating  appeals. 
They  know  very  well  that,  by  hook  or  by  crook, 
you  are  going  to  get  the  money  to  consult  them 
and  to  buy  their  quack  remedies.  No  reputa- 
ble physician  would  for  a  moment  endorse  these 
remedies;  he  knows  that  there  is  absolutely  no 
curative  virtue  in  them.  These  vile  advertis- 
ers have  no  secret,  no  knowledge,  no  drug,  no 
remedy  of  the  smallest  value  to  give  to  young 
men  in  exchange  for  their  money. 

In  their  advertisements  we  often  see  the 
photograph  of  an  elderly  man  with  a  long 
beard  and  a  benign  face,  who  is  described  as 
the  guardian  angel  who  presides  over  an  insti- 
tution founded  to  save  boys  "who  have  made 
mistakes."  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  actual 
man  who  presides  over  the  institution  has  no 
venerable  beard  whatever,  but  has  a  black- 
guard's face,  a  face  so  repulsive  for  its  animal- 
ism and  greed  that  to  publish  it  in  his  advertise- 
ment would  be  to  drive  away  patrons.  I  knew 
one  of  the  meanest,  crudest,  most  grasping  and 
conscienceless  men  in  Chicago  who  went  by  the 
name  of  old  Dr.  Blank,  who  was  supposed  to 


220  The  Crime  of  Silence 

be  one  of  these  sages  who  save  multitudes  of 
youths  from  destruction.  Such  men  as  he  and 
their  institutions  are  the  vilest  frauds.  Quacks 
of  this  kind  should  be  prohibited  by  law  from 
practicing  their  nefarious  trade,  and  their  ad- 
vertisements should  be  banished  from  public 
prints. 

If  you  have  been  so  unfortunate,  either 
through  ignorance  or  otherwise,  as  to  violate 
the  sexual  instinct,  the  first  thing  to  do  in  or- 
der to  retrieve  your  error  is  to  get  your  mind 
normal,  to  get  rid  of  the  idea  that  you  are  in  a 
hopeless  condition,  that  you  are  going  to  the 
dogs,  that  you  will  inevitably  become  emas- 
culated physically,  mentally,  and  morally. 
Above  all  other  things,  never  resort  to  any  ad- 
vertised drugs  or  remedies,  never  read  any 
quack  advertisements  or  literature.  They  will 
only  poison  your  mind,  and  their  authors  will 
rob  you  of  every  cent  you  have. 

Why,  only  a  little  while  ago  I  knew  of  a 
poor  boy  who  spent  nearly  all  the  money  he  had 
for  a  marvelous  electric  belt  which  was  going 
to  restore  his  "lost  manhood"  and  cure  him  of 
all  evil  tendencies.  Of  course  this  did  him  no 
good  whatever.     He  was  simply  throwing  his 


Quacks  and  "Lost  Manhood"     221 

money  away.  He  told  me  that  he  afterwards 
spent  hundreds  of  dollars  in  all  sorts  of  ad- 
vertised medicines,  appliances  and  devices,  and 
received  absolutely  no  help  from  any  of  them. 
Finally,  he  met  and  fell  in  love  with  a  beauti- 
ful, pure  girl,  and  through  association  with  her 
was  restored  to  his  normal  condition.  He  was 
cured  of  his  obsession,  married  the  girl  whose 
influences  had  saved  his  life  from  wreckage, 
and  is  now  happy. 

Now,  my  suffering  young  friend,  wherever 
you  may  be,  remember  that,  whatever  the  de- 
gree of  your  sexual  sin,  you  are  probably  ex- 
aggerating your  condition.  Your  mind  is  not 
normal,  and  you  are,  possibly,  so  obsessed  with 
the  hopelessness  of  your  case  that,  if  at  school 
or  college,  you  may  not  be  able  to  concentrate 
your  attention  upon  your  studies;  or,  if  at 
work,  whether  of  a  mental  or  physical  charac- 
ter, you  may  find  yourself  unable  to  focus  your 
power  and  do  it  intelligently.  The  most  fear- 
ful obsessions  I  have  ever  known  have  been 
developed  by  splendid  youths  who  have,  per- 
haps in  moments  of  supreme  temptation,  gone 
wrong,  or  who  have  ignorantly,  without  any 
knowledge  of  the  hideousness  of  their  error, 


222  The  Crime  of  Silence 

fallen  into  secret  practices  which  have  had  a 
fearful  effect  upon  their  minds.  When  they 
realized  the  awful  seriousness  of  sexual  sin, 
they  completely  lost  heart,  thought  there  was 
no  hope  of  recovering  themselves,  and  went 
down  to  utter  degradation  and  ruin. 

There  is  no  evil  so  bad  that  it  can  not  be 
ameliorated,  and  the  very  fact  that  there  is  a 
strong  probability  that  you  are  greatly  exag- 
gerating the  desperateness  of  your  situation 
should  give  you  confidence  to  help  yourself. 
Specific  suggestions  for  self -cure  treatment  are 
given  in  the  next  chapter. 

The  first  thing  for  you  to  do,  however,  is  to 
resolve  firmly  to  conquer  yourself,  to  be  a  man, 
and  to  break  away  from  whatever  evil  habit 
holds  you  down.  Keep  your  mind  as  sanely 
and  wholesomely  occupied  as  possible,  and  ab- 
solutely free  from  sexual  matters.  Read  pure, 
wholesome,  inspiring  literature  that  will  flood 
your  mind  with  lofty  thoughts  and  ideals. 
This  will  be  an  antidote  to  your  worst  enemies, 
sensual  thought,  sensual  imaginings,  and  vi- 
cious associations.  The  purer  your  thought, 
the  quicker  and  the  more  certain  your  complete 
recovery. 


Quacks  and  "Lost  Manhood"      223 

Do  not  allow  yourself  to  talk  about  sexual 
matters;  do  not  listen  to  impure  stories,  or 
covert  allusions  to  subjects  that  should  be  held 
sacred.  Associate  only  with  pure-minded  peo- 
ple. Keep  much  with  your  sisters  and  your 
mother,  and,  if  you  have  a  sweetheart,  asso- 
ciate as  much  as  possible  with  her.  The  com- 
panionship of  pure  women  will  be  one  of  your 
greatest  helps  in  recovering  yourself.  It  will 
make  you  ashamed  that  you  ever  had  even  an 
impure  thought. 

Remember  always  that  purity  is  power,  crea- 
tive energy,  efficiency,  happiness.  It  must  be 
the  very  basis  of  your  ideal  of  marriage  and  of 
a  home.  Remember,  also,  that  you  owe  it  to 
the  girl  of  your  dreams,  the  girl  you  hope  to 
marry,  to  keep  your  mind,  your  physical  life, 
just  as  pure  and  clean  as  you  expect  her  to  be 
when  you  lead  her  to  the  altar. 

The  whole  secret  of  your  recovery  is  not  in 
quack  drugs  or  remedies,  but  in  yourself,  your 
mental  attitude,  your  determination  to  be  true 
to  your  best  self,  to  live  up  to  the  highest  and 
noblest  ideal  of  manhood  which  is  possible  for 
every  normal  youth. 

When  you  get  a  glimpse  of  the  divine  within 


224  The  Crime  of  Silence 

you  and  experience  its  uplifting  power,  when 
you  learn  to  trust  the  God  in  you  for  assistance, 
for  release  from  this  slavery,  you  will  find  your- 
self and  this  divinity  always  in  the  majority. 
Nothing,  no  evil  power,  can  then  stand  against 
you.  *' Chastity  enables  the  soul  to  breathe  a 
pure  air  in  the  foulest  places." 

On  the  other  hand,  there  is  nothing  else 
which  so  shuts  God  out  of  one's  life  as  gross 
impurity.  The  soul  of  the  confirmed  sexual 
pervert  ceases  to  aspire  and  revels  in  moral 
filth.  Every  act  of  impurity  still  further  ob- 
scures the  soul  vision. 

We  forget  too  easily  the  sanctity  of  life.  It 
uplifts  a  man  to  feel  respect  for  himself,  to  feel 
that  life  proceeds  from  God,  and  that  it  gath- 
ers up  in  itself  all  the  pain  and  joy  of  the  past 
and  all  the  hope  of  the  future.  When  a  man 
understands  this,  he  willingly  forgoes  a  fleet- 
ing gratification  in  order  to  keep  life  pure, 
strong,  invincible. 

There  is  a  very  close  connection  between  a 
fine,  strong,  clean  body  and  a  fine,  strong,  clean 
character.  Very  often  deterioration  of  char- 
acter begins  with  the  neglect  of  the  person  and 
little  details  of  toilet,  of  the  bath,  and  the 


Quacks  and  "Lost  Manhood"      225 

grooming  of  oneself.  Absolute  cleanliness  of 
body  assists  greatly  in  the  attainment  of  men- 
tal and  moral  purity.  The  consciousness  of 
being  clean  in  every  particular  adds  to  one's 
self-respect  and  gives  an  uplift  to  the  whole 
being,  increases  ability,  clears  thought, 
strengthens  ambition,  stimulates  energy  and 
vitality.  A  cold  bath  every  morning,  winter 
as  well  as  summer  (if  you  react  quickly),  is  a 
tonic  for  both  body  and  mind. 

Regular  habits,  simple  fare,  plenty  of  exer- 
cise and  sleep,  and  both  in  the  open  air  if  possi- 
ble, good,  wholesome  amusements  and  associat- 
ing with  people  of  high  ideals  and  noble  char- 
acter,— all  of  these  are  wonderful  helps  in  lead- 
ing a  pure,  simple  life. 

But  in  this,  as  in  every  other  form  of  disease 
or  sin,  an  ounce  of  prevention  is  better  than  a 
pound  of  cure.  You  can  not  tell  what  may 
come  to  you  in  the  future,  what  honor  or  pro- 
motion ;  and  you  can  not  afford  to  take  chances 
upon  having  anything  in  your  past  come  up  to 
embarrass  or  hold  you  back. 

There  are  many  men  who  have  been 
raised  to  positions  of  honor  and  public  trust 
who  would  give  anything  in  the  world  if  they 


226  The  Crime  of  Silence 

could  blot  out  some  of  the  unfortunate  experi- 
ences of  their  youth.  Things  in  their  early 
history,  which  they  had  forgotten  and  never 
expected  to  hear  from  again,  are  raked  up 
when  tliey  become  candidates  for  office  or  posi- 
tions of  trust.  These  forgotten  bits  of  imag- 
ined pleasure  loom  up  as  insurmountable  bars 
across  their  pathway. 

I  know  a  very  rich  young  man  who  thought 
he  was  just  having  a  good  time  in  his  youth, — 
sowing  his  wild  oats, — who  would  give  a  large 
part  of  his  vast  wealth  to-day  if  he  could  blot 
out  a  few  years  of  his  folly. 

"Young  men,  keep  your  record  clean!"  ex- 
claimed John  B.  Gough,  his  last  words  uttered 
on  a  platform  in  Philadelphia,  at  the  very  in- 
stant when  death  laid  its  finger  on  his  lips, — 
words  in  which  the  whole  life  teacliing  of  the 
eloquent  orator  are  compressed.  The  young 
man  whose  record  is  clean  has  nothing  to  fear. 
He  can  have  no  better  help  in  making  a  suc- 
cessful life.  Even  his  physical  prowess  is  de- 
pendent on  his  purity  record. 

The  medical  directors  in  our  colleges  tell  us 
that  strict  continence  is  absolutely  imperative 
to  the  success  of  athletes  who  are  training  for 


Quacks  and  "Lost  Manhood"      227 

severe  contests.  It  often  happens,  they  say, 
that,  when  men  have  unaccountably  failed  in 
such  contests,  it  is  afterwards  found  that  they 
have  been  violating  the  laws  of  chastity  and 
thus  have  devitalized  themselves  and  so  sapped 
their  stamina  and  grit  that  they  have  been 
easily  vanquished  by  their  competitors. 

Physicians  know  that  the  retention  of  the 
sexual  fluid  makes  for  mental  and  physical 
virility,  that  it  is  transmuted  into  brain  power, 
into  creative  force  and  bodily  vigor,  and  that, 
on  the  other  hand,  any  drainage  of  this  force 
results  in  mental'  and  moral  as  well  as  physical 
deterioration.  Any  loss  of  sexual  force,  espe- 
cially before  a  youth  attains  his  growth,  starves 
and  stunts  his  physical  and  mental  develop- 
ment. 

Animal  breeders  understand  this  principle. 
They  know  that  young  animals  are  stunted  and 
never  attain  their  maximum  of  physical  devel- 
opment unless  they  are  carefully  guarded  from 
a  too  early  drain  and  loss  of  sexual  force. 
Even  untutored  savages  understand  Nature's 
laws  and  isolate  their  youths  from  females  un- 
til they  have  attained  their  complete  physical 
development. 


228  The  Crime  of  Silence 

Purity  is  best  protected  by  a  great  life  pur- 
pose. A  man  with  such  a  purpose  is  shielded 
from  a  great  many  temptations  which  come  to 
the  aimless.  His  energy,  his  surplus  vitality, 
goes  out  in  enthusiastic  work. 

Constant  occupation  and  pure,  high  think- 
ing bar  the  way  to  impure  thoughts  and  desires. 
It  is  in  the  chambers  of  an  idle  life  that  the 
spiders  of  impurity  spin  their  webs.  A  thou- 
sand temptations,  which  never  come  to  a  busy 
man,  tempt  the  idle  brain  to  all  sorts  of  mis- 
chief. The  whole  family  of  vice  dogs  the  steps 
of  the  idler.  Just  as  vicious  characters  gravi- 
tate toward  barrooms  and  haunts  of  vice,  so 
bad  things,  evil  things  which  arouse  the  pas- 
sions, gravitate  toward  an  idle  brain.  As  ver- 
min, slime  and  all  other  sorts  of  disgusting 
things  collect  in  a  pool  whose  water  has  no  out- 
let, so  all  uncleanness  finds  a  resting  place  in 
a  stagnant  mind.  While  the  brook  was  tum- 
bhng  down  the  mountain  side  it  was  clear  and 
sparkling,  but  when  it  reached  the  valley  and 
stopped  working,  it  became  the  meeting  place 
for  everything  that  was  vile,  disgusting,  and 
ugly.  The  active  mind,  the  man  engaged  in 
ennobling  work,  keeps  all  his  faculties  clean. 


Quacks  and  "Lost  Manhood"     229 

strong,  and  pure,  while  the  idler,  the  man  who 
is  not  occupied  in  some  useful  work  deteriorates 
and  becomes  polluted.  Innumerable  examples 
of  the  disintegrating  effects  of  idleness  may  be 
found  among  the  gilded  youth  who  have  no 
other  occupation  in  life  than  seeking  pleasure. 
If  you  "hitch  your  wagon  to  a  star"  and 
keep  constantly  working  toward  your  ideal,  im- 
purity can  not  get  hold  of  you.  Nothing  will 
tempt  you  to  the  misuse  or  abuse  of  the  most 
sacred  instinct  of  your  being,  the  sex  instinct, 
the  preserving  of  which  in  its  integrity,  in  its 
absolute  purity,  will  alone  bring  you  the  great- 
est happiness  and  make  possible  the  highest 
efficiency.  Your  record  will  be  as  clean  as  that 
of  the  Duke  of  Wellington,  of  whom  Tenny- 
son in  his  funeral  ode,  when  England  was 
mourning  her  great  hero,  said — 

Whatever  record  leap  to  light. 
He  never  shall  be  shamed. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

HOW.  TO   REGAIN   YOUR   MANHOOD 

Virtue  is  not  left  to  stand  alone.    He  who  practices  it  will 
have  neighbors. — Confucius. 

Or,  if  Virtue  feeble  were, 
Heaven  itself  would  stoop  to  her. 

— John  Milton. 

On  the  22d  of  September,  1862,  when  he  had 
resolved  upon  the  Emancipation  Proclamation, 
President  Lincoln  entered  this  solemn  vow  in 
his  diary:  "I  have  promised  my  God  that  I 
will  do  it." 

That  was  the  first  step  toward  the  issuance 
of  that  epoch-making  proclamation  which  gave 
liberty  to  an  enslaved  race. 

If  you  are  enslaved  by  vile,  impure  habits 
your  first  step  toward  freedom  is  to  promise 
your  God  and  yourself  that  you  will  be  free. 
Seal  your  promise  as  Lincoln  did  his  by  writing 
it  in  your  diary.  Emphasize  your  decision  by 
constantly  repeating  it  to  yourself,  or  when 
alone,  audibly.     The  audible  self -cure  treat- 

230 


How  TO  Regain  Your  Manhood     231 

ment  may  be  used  with  marvelous  results  in 
correcting  any  unfortunate  habit. 

In  a  boys'  club  in  one  of  our  large  cities  the 
boys  have  a  self-conducted  court  in  which 
they  affix  penalties  for  the  offending  members. 
This  is  one  of  the  penalties:  A  boy  who  has 
been  reported  as  using  profane  language  is 
obliged  to  write  two  hundred  times  the  sen- 
tence, "What  a  foolish  habit  this  is!"  After 
he  has  been  through  this  experience  a  few 
times  he  begins  to  realize  that  the  habit  is  a 
pretty  foolish  one. 

If  you  have  smirched  your  ideals  and  de- 
graded yourself  by  vicious  habits  of  self-in- 
dulgence, the  practice  of  impurity,  whether 
physically  or  through  a  debauched  imagination, 
there  is  no  better  way  to  break  these  habits, 
to  overcome  this  practice,  than  by  giving  your- 
self mental  and  oral,  not  written,  purity  treat- 
ments, especially  before  retiring  at  night. 
Talk  to  yourself  something  after  this  manner: 
"I  know  this  vicious  habit  is  destroying  my 
vitality;  I  am  not  so  vigorous,  so  virile,  as 
I  was  before.  My  brain  is  not  so  creative.  I 
am  not  so  robust  physically  or  mentally. 
I  do  not  think  so  clearly  because  my  brain  has 


232  The  Crime  of  Silence 

become  muddled.  I  can  not  concentrate  or 
control  my  mind  as  I  once  could.  I  go  all  to 
pieces  over  little  annoyances  which  once  did  not 
trouble  me. 

"This  demoralizing  habit  is  placing  me  at  a 
great  disadvantage  in  life.  It  is  holding  me 
down  when  I  ought  to  be  forging  ahead.  I 
know  that  I  have  more  abihty  than  many  of 
those  about  me,  who  are  accomplishing  a  great 
deal  more  than  I.  Now,  I  am  going  to  con- 
quer this  thing  which  is  destroying  my  vital- 
ity, sapping  my  life,  and  ruining  my  prospects. 
I  am  going  to  free  myself  from  it,  to  recover 
my  self-respect,  my  manhood,  at  any  cost.  I 
am  going  to  be  a  MAN,  not  a  THING." 

Keep  your  freedom  from  the  enslaving  habit 
constantly  fixed  in  your  mind,  and  continually 
strengthen  your  power  to  overcome  by  auto- 
suggestion of  hatred  of  it  and  the  reiterated 
resolution  to  fight  it  to  the  death. 

Flood  your  mind  with  thoughts  and  affirma- 
tions which  will  antidote  your  sensual  desires. 
Look  out  for  the  subtle  persuasions  of  appetite. 
Repeat  again  and  again  your  determination 
not  to  allow  your  life  to  be  spoiled  by  unre- 
strained passion.    Make  your  denial  of  its 


How  TO  Regain  Your  Manhood     233 

power  over  you  so  strong  and  vigorous  that  it 
will  help  kill  your  desire.  Whenever  you  are 
assailed  by  temptation  say: 

"It  is  unmanly  to  yield  to  this  temptation 
which  is  debasing  my  whole  being.  No  mat- 
ter if  others  do  tell  me  that,  in  order  to  be  a 
good  fellow,  to  be  a  sport,  to  be  a  'thorough- 
bred,' I  must  do  what  the  other  boys  do,  must 
know  the  world,  and  must  sow  my  wild  oats. 
I  know  it  can  not  be  right  to  do  that  which 
makes  me  hate  myself.  I  am  certain  that  the 
Creator  never  made  that  necessary  to  my  health 
or  my  growth  which  makes  me  despise  myself. 
I  can  not  afford  to  indulge  in  habits  which 
make  me  ashamed  to  look  myself  in  the  face, 
which  make  me  blush  to  meet  others. 

"I  know  very  well  that  I  radiate  what  is  in 
my  mind,  that  I  shall  give  the  impression  of  my 
uncleanness,  for  whatever  is  uppermost  in  our 
thoughts  we  are  constantly  giving  out  to  other 
minds.  If  I  indulge  in  this  habit  others  will 
see  the  results  of  it  in  my  face  and  I  shall  not 
be  able  to  look  them  in  the  eye.  I  am  only 
too  conscious  of  having  violated  the  most  sacred 
thing  in  me,  and  I  shall  radiate  this  conscious- 
ness to  others." 


234  The  Crime  of  Silence 

You  must  replace  the  impure  imaginings  in 
which  you  have  hitherto  indulged  by  their  op- 
posites,  by  pictures  of  things  that  are  pure,  up- 
lifting, clean,  healthy.  You  must  clean  up 
your  mind  before  you  can  clean  up  your  mor- 
als. Mental  hygiene  is  the  great  remedy,  the 
healing  balm  for  all  immoral  wounds.  If  the 
mind  is  kept  clean  the  body  will  follow  suit. 
Pure  mind,  pure  imagination,  pure  body. 

In  cautioning  youth  against  that  impure 
visualizing  which  bewitches  and  corrupts, 
Henry  Ward  Beecher  said,  "I  solemnly  warn 
you  against  indulging  in  morbid  imagination. 
In  that  busy  and  mischievous  faculty  begins  the 
evil." 

No  one  can  indulge  safely  thoughts,  sugges- 
tions or  emotions  he  would  not  act  out  in  real- 
ity without  shame  or  fear.  Thousands  of  the 
inmates  of  our  penitentiaries  began  their  down- 
ward career  by  imagining  criminal  procedure; 
visualizing,  innocently  perhaps  at  first,  the  act 
of  Entering  a  house  at  night  and  burglarizing 
it.  Repeating  the  criminal  thought,  the  crimi- 
nal picture,  led  to  the  criminal  act. 

The  fii'st  sin  of  the  sexual  pervert  was  one  of 
thought,  of  immoral  visuahzing,  until  the  im- 


How  TO  Regain  Your  Manhood     235 

moral  thought  habit  was  formed  and  the  acts 
followed.  He  must  regain  his  manhood 
through  the  same  medium — the  mind. 

As  Dr.  Quackenbos,  the  famous  hypnotic 
physician  who  has  had  remarkable  success  in 
helping  sexual  perverts  to  reform,  says,  it  is 
the  continued  and  unfailing  radiation  of  health- 
ful and  uplifting  ideas,  the  holding  such  ideas 
constantly  in  mind,  perpetually  keeping  the 
mind  away  from  debasing  thoughts,  these  are 
the  potent  helps  to  reform. 

Mental  hygiene  must  precede  physical  hy- 
giene. The  mind  must  be  sustained  and 
strengthened  by  the  frequent  renewal  of  your 
solemn  promise  henceforth  to  keep  yourself 
pure.  You  may  vary  the  words  you  use,  but 
let  your  purpose  be  unchanging,  inviolable 
from  the  start.  Think  of  the  pure  good  women 
you  know,  and  say : 

"I  hereby  promise  my  God  to  do  nothing 
which  will  make  me  think  less  of  myself,  which 
will  mar  or  lower  my  ideal  of  womanhood.  I 
despise  the  thing  which  keeps  me  back  in  life, 
which  tends  to  make  me  a  failure,  or  anything 
less  than  a  man.  I  will  not  take  the  risk  of  in- 
dulging in  it  a  little  longer  with  the  hope  that 


236  The  Crime  of  Silence 

something  will  help  me  to  break  the  habit  later. 
I  know  that  further  indulgence  will  only  bind 
me  more  strongly  to  it,  and  make  my  ultimate 
chances  of  breaking  away  from  it  less  and  less." 

One  great  trouble  with  the  curing  of  vicious 
habits  is  that  many  people  resolve  to  quit  for 
a  certain  time.  This  is  fatal.  There  is  only 
one  way  to  kill  a  vicious  habit,  and  that  is  to 
strangle  it  by  cutting  off  the  food  which  nour- 
ishes it. 

To  release  ourselves  from  the  power  of  a 
long-continued  habit,  and  to  form  a  new  one. 
Professor  James  said:— "We  must  take  care 
to  wrench  ourselves  with  as  strong  and  decided 
initiative  as  possible.  We  must  accumulate  all 
the  possible  circumstances  which  shall  reinforce 
the  right  motive.  We  must  put  ourselves  as- 
siduously in  positions  which  encourage  the  new 
way.  We  must  make  engagements  incom- 
patible with  the  old.  We  must  develop  our 
resolution  with  every  aid  we  know.  This  will 
give  our  new  beginnings  such  a  momentum  that 
the  temptation  to  break  down  will  not  occur  as 
soon  as  it  might,  and  every  day  during  which 
a  breakdown  is  postponed  adds  to  the  chances 
that  it  will  not  occur  at  all.     We  must,  how- 


How  TO  Regain  Your  Manhood     237 

ever,  never  suffer  an  exception  to  occur  until 
the  new  habit  is  securely  rooted  in  life.  Each 
lapse  is  like  letting  fall  a  ball  of  string  which 
one  is  carefully  winding  up — a  single  slip  un- 
does more  than  a  great  many  turns  will  wind 
again." 

There  is  no  such  thing  as  breaking  away 
gradually  from  the  vice  of  impurity  or  any 
other  sin.  Dallying  with  it  only  gives  it  a 
firmer  hold  on  you. 

John  B.  Gough  was  a  brilliant  young  man. 
He  knew  that  he  had  a  better  use  for  his  brain 
than  to  destroy  it  with  alcohol,  but  he  prided 
himself  upon  being  able  to  control  his  appetite 
at  any  time.  With  the  arrogance  of  self-con- 
fident youth  he  said  to  himself:  *'John,  you 
are  strong  enough  to  stop  this  drink  business 
whenever  you  wish  to."  But  before  he  real- 
ized it  he  found  that  the  tiny  wires  of  habit 
which  could  have  been  severed  so  easily  in  the 
early  stages  had  gradually  twisted  into  a  pow- 
erful cable  which  held  him  in  a  grip  of  iron. 
He  found  himself  a  slave  where  he  thought 
he  was  master.  He  knew  that  if  he  did  not 
put  forth  a  mighty  effort  to  break  the  chain 
that  bound  him  he  would  never  regain  his  lost 


238  The  Crime  of  Silence 

manhood.  So  one  night  at  a  temperance  meet- 
ing, with  hand  which  shook  so  that  he  could 
hardly  write  his  name,  he  signed  the  pledge. 

Then  began  a  fearful  struggle  for  mastery. 
For  days  and  nights,  without  a  mouthful  of 
food,  and  with  almost  no  sleep,  he  wrestled 
with  the  demon  which  was  trying  to  overpower 
him.  For  a  whole  week  he  continued  to  fight 
that  fearful  battle  with  appetite  until  he 
conquered.  Then  weak,  faint,  almost  dying, 
he  crawled  into  the  sunlight,  victorious.  The 
man  had  conquered  the  demon  which  had  al- 
most slain  him. 

After  this  triumph  over  the  forces  of  evil 
the  possibilities  which  had  failed  Mr.  Gough 
in  early  life  began  to  come  back.  Little  by 
little  he  got  possession  of  the  great  life  assets 
which  had  slipped  away  from  him  while  his 
brain  was  ansesthetized  by  alcohol.  Bit  by  bit 
his  capital  of  manliood  came  back  until  he  had 
not  only  re-established  himself  in  the  estima- 
tion of  those  who  knew  him,  but  became  a  tre- 
mendous power  for  good. 

Once  you  have  put  your  hand  to  the  plough 
don't  allow  yourself  to  look  back,  and  above 
all,  no  matter  how  hard  the  battle  goes,  don't 


How  TO  Regain  Your  Manhood     239 

succumb  to  discouragement.  It  is  not  an  easy 
matter  to  overcome  a  vile  habit,  but  the  power 
of  divinity  within  you  is  greater  than  that  of 
any  evil  passion  or  practice,  however  strong. 

When  Washington  was  officially  notified  of 
his  nomination  for  the  Presidency  he  was  com- 
pletely overcome,  so  little  did  he  realize  his 
own  greatness,  his  ability  to  fill  such  a  high 
office.  He  felt  that  there  was  no  one  in  the 
room  who  was  less  fitted  for  such  a  high  posi- 
tion or  less  worthy  of  so  great  an  honor.  He 
had  little  idea  of  the  latent  forces  and  com- 
manding qualities  which  the  next  two  years 
would  call  out  of  his  nature. 

Most  of  us  do  not  half  realize  our  latent 
strength  because  we  do  not  exert  it.  We  do 
not  make  a  loud  enough  call  upon  the  Great 
Within  of  us,  our  higher,  more  potent  selves. 

"Affirm  that  which  you  wish,  and  it  will  be 
manifest  in  your  life."  Affirm  it  confidently, 
with  the  utmost  faith,  without  any  doubt  of 
what  you  affirm.  Force  your  mind  toward 
your  goal;  hold  it  there  steadily,  persistently, 
for  this  is  the  mental  condition  that  achieves, 
that  conquers  all  obstacles,  overcomes  all 
temptations. 


240  The  Crime  of  Silence 

The  objective  side  of  man  has  a  wonderful 
power  to  inspire  and  to  encourage  the  subjec- 
tive side;  to  arouse  the  subconscious  mental- 
ity where  all  latent  power  and  possibilities  lie. 
Deep  within  man  dwell  slumbering  powers  that 
would  revolutionize  his  life  if  aroused  and  put 
into  action. 

The  habit  of  claiming  as  our  own,  as  a  vivid 
reality,  that  which  we  desire,  has  a  tremendous 
magnetic  force  in  drawing  those  subconscious 
powers  to  our  aid.  Affirmation  is  creative. 
The  constant  vigorous  assertion:  "I  am  purity; 
I  am  health;  I  am  vigor;  I  am  power;  I  am 
principle;  I  am  truth;  I  am  justice;  I  am 
beauty;  because  made  in  the  image  of  perfec- 
tion, of  harmony,  of  truth,  of  justice,  of  im- 
mortal beauty" — tends  to  the  manifestation  of 
these  things  in  our  lives. 

Few  people  realize  the  tremendous  creative 
power  there  is  in  stout  self-assertion;  in  the 
vigorous  affirmation  of  the  divine  power  of  the 
ego,  the  *'I,"  the  "I  am."  But  those  who  have 
once  properly  put  it  in  practice  never  again 
doubt  its  efficacy. 

After  he  had  conquered  the  alcohol  habit 


How  TO  Regain  Your  Manhood     241 

and  had  become  the  most  powerful  temperance 
lecturer  in  this  country,  Gough  used  to  describe 
the  struggles  of  a  friend  in  his  effort  to  break 
away  from  smoking,  over-indulgence  in  which 
had  shattered  his  health.  The  man  threw 
away  all  his  pipes,  everything  which  had  any- 
thing to  do  with  tobacco,  and  said  that  was  the 
end  of  the  whole  business.  But  it  was  only  the 
beginning  of  greater  suffering  than  he  had  so 
far  endured.  His  craving  for  "just  one 
smoke*^  was  so  great  that  he  would  chew  camo- 
mile, gentian,  even  tooth  picks,  to  deaden  the 
desperate  physical  gnawing  of  his  desire.  In 
a  moment  of  weakness  he  bought  a  plug  of 
tobacco  and  put  it  into  his  pocket,  not  to  chew, 
but  "for  company."  The  temptation  was  too 
great  and  he  took  the  plug  out  of  his  pocket 
determined  to  stop  his  agony  by  one  chew. 
But  before  putting  it  into  his  mouth,  some  di- 
vine impulse  stirred  within  him,  and  he  looked 
at  it  for  a  moment.  Then  his  manhood  came 
to  his  assistance,  and  throwing  the  tobacco 
from  him  he  cried,  "You  are  a  weed,  I  am  a 
man,  I  will  master  you  if  I  die  for  it !"  He 
did  master  it  by  continually  asserting  his  man- 


242  The  Crime  of  Silence 

hood,  his  power  over  the  thing  that  was  injur- 
ing him.  *'I  am  a  man.  I  will  master  you  if 
I  die  for  it." 

Audible  self-suggestion,  which  is  merely  a 
continuation  or  extension  of  the  affirmation 
principle,  is  one  of  the  greatest  aids  to  self- 
control.  We  all  know  how  a  resolution  is 
strengthened  by  the  spoken  declaration  to  put 
it  into  effect. 

There  is  a  force  in  words  spoken  aloud  which 
is  not  stirred  by  going  over  the  same  words 
mentally.  They  make  a  more  lasting  impres- 
sion upon  the  mind — just  as  words  which  pass 
through  the  eye  from  the  printed  page  make 
a  greater  impression  on  the  brain  than  we  get 
by  thinking  the  same  words;  as  seeing  objects 
of  nature  makes  a  more  lasting  impression 
upon  the  mind  than  thinking  about  them.  If 
you  repeat  to  yourself  aloud,  vigorously,  even 
vehemently,  a  firm  resolve,  you  are  more  likely 
to  carry  it  to  reality  than  if  you  merely  resolve 
in  silence. 

There  must  be  no  shilly-shallying  weaknesSj 
either  in  your  resolutions  or  affirmations  con-j 
cerning  the  loathsome  vice  of  impurity.     Yoi 
must  be  very  positive  in  your  affiLrmation  of 


How  TO  Regain  Your  Manhood     243 

power  to  overcome  your  dangerous  habit.  If 
you  simply  say  to  yourself,  "I  know  that  this 
thing  is  bad  for  me;  I  know  that  if  I  con- 
tinue its  practice,  it  will  interfere  with  my  suc- 
cess and  destroy  my  health  and  happiness,  but 
I  fear  I  shall  never  be  able  to  overcome  it;  I 
know  it  will  be  a  fearful  struggle,  because  it 
has  such  a  terrible  grip  on  me,"  you  will  never 
make  any  headway. 

Always  stoutly  assert  your  ability  to  con- 
quer. Say  to  yourself,  with  the  utmost  convic- 
tion, "I  was  not  made  to  be  dominated  by  such 
a  vice.  God's  image  in  me  was  not  intended 
to  wallow  in  this  filth.  I  can  never  use  my 
ability  to  the  best  advantage  if  I  continue  in  it. 
I  shall  never  be  the  man  my  Creator  intended 
me  to  be,  that  I  am  capable  of  being,  while  I 
harbor  this  secret  enemy  which  will  sap  my 
force,  waste  my  vitality,  and  weaken  my 
chances  of  success  in  life.  It  is  making  struc- 
tural changes  in  my  body,  destroying  my  abil- 
ity to  think,  blurring  my  moral  sensibilities. 
I  am  done  with  it  at  once  and  forever.  The 
appetite  for  it  is  destroyed.  There  is  some- 
thing divine  within  me,  the  God  man,  the 
3tamp  of  my  Creator,  that  which  makes  me  per- 


244  The  Crime  of  Silence 

fectly  well  able  to  overcome  this  thing,  which 
is  not  of  God,  but  of  the  devil." 

The  trouble  with  most  people  in  trying  to 
overcome  evil  habits  or  to  create  good  ones  is 
that  they  do  not  use  half  their  will  power,  or, 
what  is  even  stronger,  their  power  of  convic- 
tion which  can  be  greatly  increased  and  inten- 
sified by  constant  affirmation.  Our  resolutions 
are  weak,  wishy-washy.  We  do  not  put  vim 
enough,  grit  enough  into  them.  It  is  only  the 
vigorous  resolution  that  conquers. 

When  a  general  burns  his  bridges  behind 
him,  cuts  off  all  chances  of  retreat,  he  knows 
that  his  men  will  fight  with  a  desperation  which 
would  not  otherwise  have  been  possible.  As 
soon  as  you  have  seriously  committed  yourself 
to  your  resolution  and  have  burned  your 
bridges  behind  you,  this  very  committal  will 
call  to  your  aid  mighty  hidden  resources  of 
whose  very  existence  you  were  ignorant.  But 
as  long  as  you  leave  open  a  way  of  retreat,  and 
think  that  perhaps  when  the  temptation  be- 
comes too  strong  you  will  indulge  just  a  little, 
you  will  not  bring  out  your  greatest  resources. 
These  only  respond  to  the  desperate  call,  the 
wireless  "S.  O,  S."  of  the  soul. 


How  TO  Regain  Your  Manhood     245 

Have  nothing  to  do  with  the  companions 
that  would  drag  you  down.  Cut  loose  from 
everything  that  suggests,  that  tempts  you  to 
indulge  in  impurity.  Get  out  into  the  country, 
if  you  can,  into  the  woods,  away  from  the  al- 
lurements of  vice.  Say  to  yourself,  repeatedly 
and  firmly,  out  loud  if  you  are  alone,  "I  hereby 
take  a  sacred  oath  never  to  repeat  this  cursed 
thing.  It  is  an  insult  to  my  ideal  of  woman- 
hood, an  insult  to  my  future  wife,  a  crime  to 
my  unborn  children.  You  are  a  deadly, 
beastly,  degrading,  soul-killing,  efficiency- 
paralyzing  habit;  I  am  a  man.  Let's  have  it 
out  now  once  for  all.  Let's  have  an  under- 
standing with  each  other  right  here  as  to  who 
shall  dominate  this  divine  human  machine — 
my  body.  There  is  no  chance  for  both  of  us  in 
this  establishment.  Either  you  have  got  to  get 
down  off  the  throne  and  let  me  rule,  or  I  shall 
have  to  quit  and  turn  everything  over  to  you, 
which  I  shall  never  do. 

"Now,  you  vile  Thing,  you  have  disgraced 
me  for  the  last  time.  Never  again  can  you 
humiliate  me,  make  me  despise  myself.  Never 
again  can  you  drag  me  into  the  mud  and  mire 
of  beastly  indulgence,  or  make  me  the  slave 


246  The  Crime  of  Silence 

of  desire  or  passion.  I  am  done  with  you. 
You  have  had  your  last  grip  upon  me. 

"There  can  be  only  one  ruler  here;  and  that 
one  is  going  to  be  myself.  I  don't  propose  to 
allow  you  to  ruin  my  hf e,  to  force  me  to  carry 
in  my  very  face  the  signs  of  my  weakness,  of 
my  degradation  and  the  triumph  of  vice  over 
me.  You  have  humiliated,  disgraced,  and  in- 
sulted me  long  enough  by  your  damnable 
domination,  making  me  admit  that  I  am  a  no- 
body and  that  I  have  lost  out  in  the  great  race 
for  success  and  happiness,  making  me  acknowl- 
edge that  I  have  not  enough  strength  of  mind 
to  stand  up  against  a  single,  vicious,  degrading 
habit. 

"Now,  I  defy  you,  and  I  deny  your  power 
over  me.  Hereafter  I  am  going  to  walk  the 
earth  as  a  conqueror,  not  as  conquered;  as  a 
victor,  not  as  a  victim.  Hereafter  I  am  not 
going  about  like  a  whipped  cur.  I  am  going 
to  face  the  world  with  my  head  up.  Here- 
after I  am  going  to  be  master  here.  You  have 
gotten  hold  of  the  wrong  man  if  you  think  you 
are  going  to  keep  me  down  any  longer. 

"Your  chief  strength  over  me  in  the  past 
has  come  from  the  law  of  repetition.     Every 


How  TO  Regain  Your  Manhood     247 

time  I  yielded  to  you  made  it  easier  and  ever 
easier  to  yield  again.  By  this  same  law  of 
repetition,  through  the  power  of  affirmation,  I 
will  free  myself  forever  from  your  grip." 

You  will  be  surprised  at  the  uplifting  sensa- 
tion, the  stimulating  thrill,  the  new  sense  of 
victory  which  will  come  from  your  first  tri- 
umph over  your  enemy.  You  may  feel  weak, 
exhausted  physically  in  the  beginning,  but  you 
will  grow  stronger  daily.  Those  verbal  heart 
to  heart  talks  with  yourself  will  give  you  new 
courage,  new  power  to  overcome.  They  will 
start  a  new  hope  center  in  your  life  and  sus- 
tain you  in  the  battle.  By  the  constant  repe- 
tition of  victory  over  your  lower  nature  you 
will  in  time  gain  complete  self-mastery. 

Another  thing  of  the  utmost  importance  is 
to  have  your  mind  in  good  condition  when  you 
retire.  Prepare  your  mind  for  sleep  with  a 
mental  bath,  excluding  from  it  every  vicious 
thought,  all  unholy  visualizing.  Be  careful 
what  you  see  at  night.  Do  not  go  to  exciting 
or  questionable  amusements,  for  whatever  dis- 
turbs your  sleep  will  aggravate  your  trouble. 
Put  yourself  in  a  worshipful  attitude.  The 
mind  adapts  itself  to  the  body's  position.     The 


248  The  Crime  of  Silence 

assuming  of  an  attitude  of  reverence  and  de- 
votion toward  your  Creator,  the  lifting  of  the 
ideals,  by  dwelling  upon  pure,  clean  thoughts 
before  composing  yourself  to  sleep,  will  be  a 
tremendous  help  in  restoring  you  to  health  and 
purity. 

It  is  a  terrible  thing  to  be  a  slave  to  any 
weakness  or  vice  which  saps  our  energies, 
dwarfs  our  efforts  and  lessens  or  ruins  our 
chances  in  life.  But  these  things  are  only  as 
strong,  only  as  real  as  we  ourselves  allow  them 
to  be.  The  most  degrading  habit  can  be 
broken  link  by  link  as  it  was  forged  link  by 
link. 

It  is  holding  the  thought  that  you  can  not 
break  away  from  the  degrading  habit  you  have 
contracted  that  gives  it  power  over  you.  That 
power  would  instantly  be  broken  if  you  be- 
lieved, and  asserted  your  belief  in  your  own 
power  to  break  away  from  it.  But  as  long 
as  you  believe  you  are  a  hopeless  victim  of  the 
habit  that  enslaves  you  you  will  be.  When 
you  begin  to  affirm  that  you  are  free ;  that  you 
are  no  longer  the  slave  of  vice,  you  have  al- 
ready written  your  Emancipation  Proclama- 
tion. 


J 


How  TO  Regain  Your  Manhood     249 

Vice  repeated  is  like  the  wandering  wind, 
Blows  dust  in  others'  eyes,  to  spread  itself. 

— Shakespeare. 

Virtue  alone  outbuilds  the  pyramids; 

Her  monuments  shall  last,  when  Egypt's  fall. 

— Edward  Young. 

So  dear  to  heaven  is  saintly  chastity 
That,  when  a  soul  is  found  sincerely  so, 
A  thousand  liveried  angels  lackey  her. 
Driving  far  off  each  thing  of  sin  and  guilt. 

— John  Milton. 


Note. — The  subject  of  health  in  general,  including  in  particular  a 
description  of  the  proper  measures  to  be  taken  for  the  recovery  of 
vigorous  manhood,  is  in  itself  an  extensive  one — too  extensive  to  be 
discussed  in  this  volume. 

When  youthful  errors  have  undermined  the  physical  powers,  one  is 
face  to  face  with  problems  that  are  ofttimes  serious.  But  we  have  the 
assurance  of  specialists  in  the  field  of  sex  hygiene  that  once  injurious 
habits  are  absolutely  discontinued,  their  effects  may  in  every  case  be 
overcome  by  proper  physical  upbuilding  and  the  attainment  of  a  sane 
and  normal  mental  attitude. 

Those  who  seek  full  and  complete  information  on  the  anatomy  of 
the  human  body,  and  also  in  regard  to  the  hygienic  measures — diet, 
exercise,  bathing,  etc.,  best  adapted  to  counteract  physical  shortcomings 
of  every  sort,  cannot  do  better  than  to  obtain  from  the  publishers  of 
the  present  work  the  five  volumes  of  "Macfadden's  Encyclopedia  of 
Physical  Culture."  These  volumes  present  in  complete  form,  for  ready 
reference,  information  on  every  aspect  of  body-building.  Attention  is 
directed  to  the  descriptive  notice  following  the  conclusion  of  this  book. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

WHY   THE    ^'unfortunate   WOMAN" 

'Tis  a  "glorious"  prowess,  forsooth,  with  a  word. 

To  wound  the  trusting  and  tame  the  proud. 
E'en  as  a  leaf  by  a  breath  is  stirred, 

A  spray  by  a  dewdrop  bowed; 
And  so  the  battle  goes  bravely  on. 

And  hearts  get  hardened  as  tongues  flow  free. 
And  swells  the  blazon,  "I  conquer  you. 

Lest  you  should  conquer  me." 

When  the  rose  of  thine  own  being 

Shall  reveal  its  central  fold. 
Thou  shalt  look  within  and  marvel. 

Fearing  what  thine  eyes  behold: 
What  it  shows  and  what  it  teaches 

Are  not  things  wherewith  to  part ; 
Thorny  rose !  that  always  costeth 

Beatings  at  the  heart. — Jean  Ingelow. 

Nearly  half  a  century  ago  a  boy  of  nineteen, 
whose  parents  were  in  moderate  circumstances, 
went  to  a  large  city  at  a  distance  to  take  an  ad- 
vanced course  of  study*  To  eke  out  the  small 
allowance  his  father  could  afford,  he  did  jani- 
tor work,  put  on  plastering  laths  by  the  thou- 

250 


Why  the  "Unfortunate  Woman"     251 

sand,  japanned  metal  castings  by  piece  work, 
and  drifted  into  canvassing  for  books  under  a 
general  agent  who  trained  him  and  under 
whose  tutelage  he  soon  became  very  successful, 
taking  up  a  new  book  when  his  territory  had 
been  covered  for  the  one  in  hand  in  its  turn. 
At  length  he  took  up  two  companion  books  by 
Dr.  George  H.  Napheys,  "The  Transmission 
of  Life,"  for  men,  and  "The  Physical  Life  of 
Woman,"  for  women.  They  were  very  good 
books,  giving  information  every  one  should  pos- 
sess on  matters  of  sex  and  sexual  hygiene ;  and, 
as  they  were  of  interest,  or  should  be,  to  all, 
the  agent  directed  that  the  ground  should  be 
covered  without  skipping  a  house,  as  had  been 
done  with  other  books  of  interest  only  to  spe- 
cial classes. 

In  one  house  the  canvasser  sold  one  of  the 
women's  books  to  a  young  woman  who  seemed 
much  interested  in  it  and  questioned  him  very 
earnestly  about  it  before  purchasing,  and  who 
then  asked  him  to  wait  a  moment  until  she 
could  call  in  some  friends  and  draw  their  atten- 
tion to  the  book, — as  the  young  man,  contrary 
to  his  usual  custom,  carried  a  supply  of  books 
for  immediate  deHvery  with  him.     She  soon 


252  The  Crime  of  Silence 

returned,  accompanied  by  half  a  dozen  young 
women  friends,  each  of  whom,  by  her  advice, 
bought  a  book.  They  all  seemed  to  be  simi- 
larly interested,  and  gave  him  the  names  and 
addresses  of  friends  to  whom  they  wished  him 
to  present  the  merits  of  the  volume.  He  had 
not  called  upon  more  than  one  or  two  of  these 
friends  before  it  suddenly  dawned  upon  him 
that  there  was  something  queer  about  the  whole 
matter;  and,  on  inquiry,  he  learned  what  he 
had  at  first  not  so  much  as  suspected, — he  had 
stumbled  into  a  house  of  ill  fame  at  first,  and 
had  been  sent  to  other  houses  of  the  same  kind. 
But  what  impressed  him  most  was  that  every 
inmate,  or  nearly  every  one,  bought  a  book, 
one  of  the  most  moral  and  plain-spoken  ever 
published. 

Naturally,  because  of  the  sales,  he  made  the 
rounds  of  all  but  the  lowest  brothels  in  the  city, 
and  sold  many  books.  But  what  astonished 
him  most — deeply  impressed  him,  in  fact, — 
was  that  not  once,  in  all  this  round,  was  he  him- 
self canvassed  for  immoral  purposes.  Indeed, 
although  some  of  the  women  he  met  were  igno- 
rant and  somewhat  slangy  of  speech,  not  one 
made  a  remark  or  even  a  suggestion  which 


Why  the  "Unfortunate  Woman"     253 

would  be  considered  improper  in  any  company. 
The  earnestness  and  bearing  of  the  boy  no 
doubt  had  something  to  do  with  this,  but  it  was 
almost  painfully  evident  that  the  women  were 
very  seriously,  were  even  sadly  interested  in 
the  subject  matter  of  the  book,  and  were  im- 
bued with  a  sort  of  missionary  spirit  that  led 
them  to  wish  to  extend  its  aid  and  counsel  to 
as  many  of  their  unfortunate  class  as  possi- 
ble. 

The  boy,  grown  to  manhood,  has  been  solic- 
ited many  times  in  large  cities  by  "women  in 
scarlet,"  but  never  with  any  Ucentious  temp- 
tation whatever.  Instead,  in  such  instances, 
he  has  always  pitied  the  poor  creatures,  and  he 
has  never  forgotten  the  glimpse  he  got,  in  can- 
vassing, of  traces  of  their  better  nature  which 
still  survived  their  fall  even  in  world-con- 
demned and  pariahed  prostitutes. 

He  has  since  married  and  reared  a  large  fam- 
ily of  children.  Influenced  by  what  he  learned 
while  canvassing,  he  has  had  repeated,  careful, 
sympathetic  talks  with  his  boys,  beginning 
when  each  was  sioc  years  old,  and  has  persuaded 
his  wife  to  have  similar  talks  with  the  girls. 
All  the  children  are  leading  moral  lives,  and 


254  The  Crime  of  Silence 

not  even  a  rumor  of  anything  else  has  stained 
the  life  of  any  of  them. 

In  answer  to  a  question  as  to  whether  the 
*  unfortunate  woman"  is  a  victim  or  a  contribu- 
tor to  her  own  vicious  career,  John  D.  Rocke- 
feller, Jr.,  founder  of  the  Bureau  of  Social  Hy- 
giene in  New  York  City,  replied:  "I  say  un- 
hesitatingly that  in  the  vast  majority  of  cases 
she  is  a  victim.  Prostitution,  as  now  con- 
ducted in  this  country  and  in  Europe,  is  very 
largely  a  man's  business ;  the  women  are  merely 
tools  in  the  hands  of  the  strongel*  sex.  It  is  a 
business  run  for  profit,  and  the  profit  is  large. 

"It  is  my  belief  that  less  than  twenty-five 
per  cent,  of  the  prostitutes  in  this  city  would 
have  fallen  if  they  had  had  an  equally  good 
chance  to  lead  a  pure  life.  That  they  have 
been  dragged  into  the  mire  in  such  large  num- 
bers is  due  to  a  variety  of  circumstances,  among 
which  are  poverty,  low  wages,  improper  home 
conditions  and  lack  of  training,  the  desire  to 
gratify  the  natural  craving  for  amusement, 
pretty  things,  etc. ;  but,  while  all  of  these  and 
many  others  may  be  contributory  causes,  man 
is  chiefly  responsible  for  their  fall." 

This    statement    of    Mr.    Rockefeller    is 


Why  the  "Unfortunate  Woman"     255 

supported  by  Lieutenant-Governor  Wagner, 
chairman  of  the  State  Factory  Investigation 
Commission  of  New  York.  Speaking  of  a  re- 
cent report  of  the  Commission,  he  said: — 

"Women  lose  what  is  best  and  most  sacred  to 
womanhood  because  of  starvation  wages  paid 
in  some  greater  New  York  industries.  Start- 
ling conditions  have  been  disclosed.  We  have 
found  that  thousands  of  women  receive  less 
than  six  dollars  a  week,  and  in  many  instances 
as  low  as  four  and  one-half  and  five  dollars  a 
week. 

"How  do  these  women  live?  We  know  that 
they  cannot  live  on  these  low  wages.  They 
cannot  secure  even  the  barest  necessities  of  life, 
much  less  help  maintain  a  family,  as  some  of 
them  have  to  do. 

"Who  pays  this  difference? 

"That  is  the  serious  problem  that  confronts 
us.  Many  of  these  women  literally  starve.  In 
other  cases  there  is  a  loss  of  health,  a  physical 
and  mental  breakdown,  and  the  worker  be- 
comes a  charge  upon  the  people.  In  still  other 
cases  some  of  these  unfortunate  women  are 
rendered  an  easy  prey  to  the  basest  tempta- 
tions, particularly  in  the  larger  cities." 


256  The  Crime  of  Silence 

The  detectives  of  the  Juvenile  Protective 
Association  in  Chicago  recently  arrested  and 
convicted  seventeen  men  and  three  women  who 
were  plying  their  miserable  trade  in  the  rest 
room  of  one  of  the  big  stores.  They  were 
taking  advantage  of  girls  waiting  to  look  over 
the  "Help  Wanted"  advertisements  in  the 
papers,  which  they  could  not  afford  to  buy. 

The  department  store  furnishes  fruitful 
grounds  for  the  procurers,  both  male  and  fe- 
male; for,  while  the  doors  of  factories  are 
closed  to  outsiders,  the  store  doors  are  always 
open  to  everybody. 

Dapper  young  slave  traders  will  go  into  a 
store  and  make  little  purchases  of  the  prett}^ 
girls,  often  trying  to  flirt  with  them,  giving 
them  little  presents  and  inviting  them  out  for 
the  evening;  and,  the  first  thing  these  girls 
know,  they  are  in  the  procurer's  toils.  Women 
who  keep  dives  often  invite  salesgirls  to  their 
homes.  These  women  usually  spend  large 
sums  for  clothing,  and  they  often  tell  the  girls 
behind  the  counters,  especially  the  attractive 
ones,  that  they  could  earn  much  more  money  in 
a  much  easier  way  than  by  worldng  so  hard  in 
the  stores! 


Why  the  "Unfortunate  Woman"     257 

Many  salesgirls  who  wait  upon  rich  cus- 
tomers and  who  see  all  sorts  of  pretty  things, 
beautiful  dresses  and  lingerie,  which  the  young 
girls  long  to  possess,  piled  up  about  them  every- 
where, are  constantly  placed  under  fearful 
temptation.  Of  course  a  well-trained  girl,  of 
strong,  resolute  character,  is  in  no  danger  of 
succumbing,  but  when  we  remember  the  num- 
bers of  naturally  weak,  ignorant,  and  wholly 
untrained  girls  many  of  whom  live  in  loveless 
homes,  often  with  dissolute  parents,  we  can 
understand  their  craving  for  affection  and  pro- 
tection, and  why  they  are  more  easily  tempted 
by  the  men  who  make  love  to  them,  and  who — 
though  of  course  the  girls  do  not  suspect  them 
— are  all  the  time  trying  to  betray  them,  to 
work  their  ruin. 

Martial  music,  color,  glittering  uniforms 
have  a  strong  psychological  influence  even  on 
staid  practical  people.  They  stir  the  blood  of 
the  young  and  work  them  up  to  a  state  of  ab- 
normal excitement.  Most  young  girls  are  pe- 
culiarly susceptible  to  the  influence  of  this 
martial  glamour.  There  is  something  about  a 
military  uniform  and  a  soldier's  life  which  fas- 
cinates them. 


258  The  Crime  of  Silence 

Jane  Addams  says  that,  during  an  army  en- 
campment near  Chicago,  a  great  many  girls 
were  so  fascinated  by  the  presence  of  the  young 
soldiers  in  the  city  that  they  completely  lost 
their  heads.  An  investigation  showed  that 
some  had  even  climbed  out  of  the  windows  at 
night,  after  their  parents  were  asleep,  and  gone 
out  with  these  men.  One  girl  was  found  by 
the  agent  of  a  protective  society  hurrying  away 
from  the  encampment  late  at  night.  The 
tears  were  running  down  her  face,  and  she 
was  sobbing  as  if  her  heart  would  break.  She 
was  so  overwhelmed  with  her  wrong  that  she 
was  totally  unconscious  of  the  presence  of  the 
society  agent,  who  heard  her  say  over  and  over 
to  herself:  "O  Mother  of  God,  what  have  I 
done !     What  have  I  done !" 

Their  natural  love  of  romance,  their  spirit 
of  adventure,  their  passion  for  innocent  fun 
and  play,  have  been  taken  advantage  of  to 
lead  many  to  their  ruin.  If  those  traits  had 
been  directed  into  wholesome  channels  in  child- 
hood, most  of  the  unfortunate  girls,  whom  the 
world  condemns,  and  upon  whom  society  turns 
its  back,  could  have  been  saved  to  lives  of  use- 
fulness and  happiness. 


Why  the  "Unfortunate  Woman"     259 

Who  can  estimate  the  awful  human  deprav- 
ity, the  tragedies,  that  have  resulted  from 
young  people  frequenting  cheap  theatres,  sug- 
gestive picture  shows,  and  other  low  amuse- 
ment places,  with  all  their  demoralizing  influ- 
ences? One  of  the  most  dangerous  elements 
in  those  places  is  that  they  cater  so  much  to 
the  animal  instincts.  In  their  very  advertise- 
ments, they  appeal  to  the  sexual  instinct.  In 
most  dance  halls,  improprieties  in  the  dancing 
and  in  the  association  of  the  sexes  are  fostered 
and  encouraged,  aided  by  the  exciting  influ- 
ence of  drink;  the  desires  are  inflamed,  and 
means  of  gratification  are  even  provided. 

The  severity  and  penuriousness  of  some 
parents  who  are  constantly  prodding  them  to 
earn  more  money,  to  increase  the  family  in- 
come, are  responsible  for  the  downfall  of  their 
daughters.  The  family  loyalty  to  which  many 
of  these  girls  have  been  trained  frequently 
leads  them  to  support  a  father  who  drinks  and 
gambles,  even  though  they  are  often  brutally 
treated  if  they  do  not  bring  home  what  the 
parents  consider  sufficient  money. 

A  well-known  sociologist  cites  a  typical  ex- 
ample of  this  kind.     A  delicate,  anemic  girl 


260  The  Crime  of  Silence 

who  was  a  dishwasher  in  a  restaurant  found 
herself  unable  to  earn  what  her  parents  ex- 
pected of  her.  The  long  hours  of  confinement 
and  the  heavy  work  were  too  much  for  her 
weak  frame,  and  the  meagre  contents  of  her 
pay  envelope  were  often  further  reduced  by 
her  off-days  when  ill.  Her  miserable  parents 
not  only  upbraided  her  for  not  earning  more, 
but  often  cuffed  and  slapped  her;  and  her 
brothers  and  sisters,  who  were  stronger  and 
earned  somewhat  more  than  she  did,  accused 
her  of  laziness  and  of  not  doing  her  part. 

The  girl  became  so  discouraged  that  when  a 
waitress  in  the  restaurant  in  which  she  worked 
told  her  that  she  could  double  her  money  by 
making  noon  hour  appointments  in  a  near-by 
disreputable  hotel,  she  decided  to  try  to  earn 
her  pay  in  an  "easier  way."  It  was  many 
months  after  she  entered  this  disreputable 
house  before  her  parents  knew  of  the  change, 
as  she  continued  to  bring  her  money  home 
regularly  every  week. 

Years  after  the  death  of  the  ignorant  mother, 
who  had  abused  her  for  her  meagre  earnings, 
the  unfortunate  girl  referred  to  her  with  the 
hope  that  "the  old  lady  is  now  suffering  the 


Why  the  "Unfortunate  Woman"     261 

torments  of  the  lost  for  making  me  what  I 
am!" 

Of  course,  girls  of  this  class  who  have  not 
been  properly  trained  do  not  fully  realize  the 
moral  iniquity  of  their  conduct  or  its  awful  con- 
sequences. They  only  see  the  contrast  between 
the  tempting  picture  put  before  them — the 
large  pay,  the  beautiful  clothes  and  exciting 
experiences  of  the  evil  life, — and  their  own 
poor,  meagre  earnings,  shabby  clothes,  and 
monotonous  existence.  The  stories  of  the 
large  amounts  of  money  which  others  make  in 
their  illicit  trade  are  fearfully  tempting  to 
weak-minded  girls  who  have  such  a  hard  time 
to  make  a  decent  living,  to  clothe  themselves 
respectably,  and  in  many  instances  to  give  a 
large  part  of  their  salary  for  the  support  of 
their  families. 

It  is  true  that  a  girl's  virtue  should  be  dearer 
to  her  than  life  itself,  and  that  the  very  thought 
of  selling  it  for  material  things — for  anything 
whatever, — should  fill  her  with  horror;  but,  in 
any  consideration  of  this  question,  we  must 
not  forget  the  ignorance,  the  lack  of  training, 
the  environment  and  home  conditions  in  such 
cases  as  those  of  the  Httle  dishwasher,  and  the 


262  The  Crime  of  Silence 

constant  temptations  and  evil  allurements  with 
which  those  unfortunate  girls  who  are  led 
astray  are  usually  surrounded. 

The  flourishing  condition  of  commercialized 
vice  is  very  largely  a  result  of  poverty,  of  dis- 
couragement, of  desperation.  Tens  of  thou- 
sands of  business  men  in  this  country,  even  in 
comfortable  circumstances,  are  perpetually 
haunted  by  the  fear  that  they  may  not  be  able 
to  support  their  families  and  that  they  will  be 
disgraced  by  failure.  How  many  men  become 
discouraged  when  they  are  out  of  work  for  a 
time  and  commit  suicide  to  put  an  end  to  their 
troubles ! 

What  shall  we  say,  then,  of  the  multitudes 
of  girls  who  can  barely  earn  enough  to  keep 
them  alive,  even  in  their  healthiest,  most  at- 
tractive years?  What  shall  we  say  of  the 
temptations  that  beset  them  on  every  hand? 
Is  it  any  wonder  that  the  spectre  of  poverty 
demoralizes  the  minds  of  some  of  them  and  that 
they  become  easy  victims  of  the  tempter? 

Is  it  any.  wonder  that  the  inexperienced  girl 
who  perhaps  does  not  know  where  her  next 
meal  is  coming  from  should  fall  an  easy  prey 
to  some  man  who  is  a  professional  expert  in 


Why  the  "Unfortunate  Woman"     263 

undermining  a  girl's  virtue,  expert  in  vicious 
diplomacy,  in  suggestion,  in  hypnotism,  expert 
in  taking  advantage  of  the  very  virtue  of  the 
girl,  her  longings  for  a  home  of  her  own,  her 
yearning  for  the  food  of  starved  affections,  her 
longing  for  somebody  to  love  her? 

Just  imagine  the  temptation  of  a  man  who 
is  struggling  against  a  great  passion  for  drink, 
trying  his  best  to  live  a  temperate  life  when  his 
indomitable  appetite  is  clamoring  for  satisfac- 
tion! Imagine  this  man's  plight  when  his 
companions  pull  him  into  a  barroom  where 
everybody  is  drinking,  hilarious  and  exuberant, 
and  where  he  is  insistently  urged  to  join  the 
rest, — what  would  be  the  probabilities  of  his  re- 
sisting? 

The  poor  girl  who  is  solicited  by  the  white 
slave  procurer  is  equally  tempted.  He  ap- 
peals to  her  longing  for  a  home,  her  yearning 
for  love.  Perhaps  her  life  has  been  barren 
of  social  opportunities,  barren  of  friendship, 
barren  of  love,  and  this  tempter  holds  out  all 
sorts  of  inducements  to  her.  He  pretends  to 
love  her;  he  tells  her  he  wants  to  marry  her, 
that  she  is  the  girl  of  all  girls  he  has  ever  met 
who  understands  him.     She  is  bombarded  with 


264  The  Crime  of  Silence 

all  sorts  of  suggestions  and  temptations.  Is  it 
any  wonder  that  in  a  moment  of  weakness,  and 
perhaps  when  she  is  weary,  she  accepts  a  drink 
to  brace  her  up,  not  realizing  that  this  will  re- 
lax her  moral  sensibilities,  and  that  she  has 
already  unlocked  the  door  which  her  betrayer 
will  never  again  let  her  lock? 

Poverty  and  desperation  and  betrayal 
largely  explain  why  so  many  delinquent  girls 
and  deserted  women  enter  the  underworld. 
Many  a  girl  has  explained  her  yielding  to 
temptation  and  an  evil  life  by  saying  that  in  a 
moment  of  utter  weariness  and  discouragement 
she  "went  out  with  a  man." 

They  are  not  the  most  robust  kind,  it  is 
true,  but  it  is  well  known  that  "morals  fluctu- 
ate with  trade."  In  hard  times,  when  business 
is  poor,  during  the  dull  season,  and  especially 
in  periods  of  great  commercial  depression,  the 
evil  resorts  have  a  great  influx  of  recruits. 

In  investigations  conducted  by  the  various 
girls'  protective  associations,  many  instances 
have  been  found  where  girls  had  gone  hungry 
for  months,  because  they  could  not  earn  enough 
to  pay  their  room  rent,  their  laundry  bills,  and 
the  price  of  their  meals,  before  they  succumbed 


Why  the  "Unfortunate  Woman"     265 

to  temptation.  They  had  given  in  only  after 
suffering  untold  tortures,  through  fear  of  star- 
vation, and  because  their  pride  kept  them  from 
appealing  to  charity. 

Many  girls  are  led  into  earning  money  in 
questionable  ways  because  of  their  pride,  a 
pitiably  false  pride  to  be  sure.  They  can  not 
keep  up  appearances;  they  can  not  pay  for 
their  room  or  board;  their  landlady  presses 
them,  and  then  there  are  the  appealing  letters 
from  home  for  help, — all  these  things,  which 
the  great  world  outside  knows  nothing  of,  are 
at  work  to  undermine  self-control  and  break 
down  courage. 

One  girl  pressed  in  this  way  explained  to 
those  who  were  trying  to  rescue  her  that  she 
"had  sold  out  for  a  pair  of  shoes"!  This  un- 
fortunate finally  yielded  to  the  temptation  to 
earn  money  in  an  illicit  way  after  she  had 
been  trying  in  vain  for  seven  months  to  save 
money  to  buy  a  pair  of  shoes.  She  paid  three 
dollars  a  week  for  board,  sixty  cents  for  car- 
fare, and  had  only  forty  cents  a  week  left  for 
all  other  expenses  out  of  her  four-dollar  salary! 
It  was  impossible  to  buy  the  shoes. 

The  fearful  struggle  for  a  livelihood,  the 


266  The  Crime  of  Silence 

false  standards  of  living  in  this  country,  and 
the  terrible  strain  to  keep  up  appearances  are 
responsible  for  the  downfall  of  tens  of  thou- 
sands of  unfortunate  girls,  who,  in  their  dis- 
tressing poverty,  see  the  evidences  of  wealth 
and  luxurious  living  flaunted  in  their  faces 
wherever  they  go.  When  we  add  to  this  the 
damnable  wiles  of  the  procurers,  who  are  al- 
ways on  the  lookout  for  girls  who  are  discour- 
aged and  distressed,  it  is  not  strange  that  so 
many  of  them  are  dragged  into  the  underworld. 

The  effects  of  over-strain,  over-fatigue,  and 
insufficient  nourishment  tend  to  imdermine 
the  moral  sensibilities.  Think  of  a  girl  trying 
to  make  a  living  by  inserting  eyelets  in  shoes 
at  the  rate  of  two  cents  for  a  case  of  twenty- 
four  pairs!  Is  it  any  wonder  that  the  powers 
of  physical  and  moral  resistance  become 
weakened  by  this  perpetual  over-strain,  over- 
speeding,  which  is  common  in  every  industrial 
line? 

Is  it  not  easy  to  see  how  young  immigrant 
girls,  who  are  ignorant  of  our  language,  our 
usages,  our  streets,  our  social  customs,  often 
become  easy  victims  of  evil  men  who  take  ad- 
vantage of  the  great  difficulty  they  have  in 


Why  the  "Unfortunate  Woman"     267 

getting  work  in  our  overcrowded  industrial 
centres,  and  who  impose  on  their  innocent 
credulousness  with  all  sorts  of  stories? 

Innumerable  causes  have  been  in  operation 
to  assist  the  white  slavers  in  their  nefarious 
work.  Among  other  things  a  troubled,  un- 
happy mind  and  mental  discord  tend  to  demor- 
alize self-control  and  lead  the  weak-willed  and 
untrained  into  wrong  paths.  A  mother's 
death  and  the  breaking  up  of  family  ties,  the 
coming  of  a  harsh  stepmother,  discord  and  dis- 
sipation in  the  home, — all  these  things  help  to 
feed  disreputable  houses. 

A  well-known  social  worker  gives  a  pathetic 
case  of  a  poor  girl  whose  mother  died,  and 
whose  stepmother  would  not  take  her  into  the 
home.  Though  only  a  mere  child,  she  fell  a 
victim  to  a  white  slave  trader  who  treated  her 
with  unspeakable  cruelty,  and  she  was  at  last 
found  with  a  bottle  of  carbolic  acid,  on  the 
point  of  ending  her  life  and  the  life  of  her 
nameless  baby. 

It  IS  all  very  well  for  people  who  have  plenty 
to  eat  and  comfortable  homes  to  wonder  why 
girls  should  have  so  little  stamina  and  char- 
acter, and  should  so  easily  yield  to  sin.     But 


268  The  Crime  of  Silence 

when  a  girl's  last  dollar  is  gone  and  she  is  weary 
with  hunting  for  a  situation,  when  hunger 
stares  her  in  the  face,  and  she  is,  perhaps,  told 
by  her  lodging  mistress  that  she  "cannot  stay 
on  any  longer" ;  when  she  is  thrown  out  on  the 
street,  and  there  is  not  one  to  take  a  particle 
of  interest  in  her  or  to  care  what  becomes  of 
her,  how  can  you,  who  perhaps  do  not  know 
what  temptation  is,  be  so  pitiless  to  the  girl, 
who,  after  struggling  for  a  long  time,  at  length 
goes  wrong?  She  simply  enters  the  only  door 
that  opens  to  her,  No  other  place  will  take 
her  in ;  no  one  else  outside  of  this  will  give  her 
food  and  shelter.  When  we  remember  that  the 
strongest  of  us  are  to  a  large  extent  victims  of 
conditions,  is  it  any  wonder  that  a  girl  in  such 
a  distressed  mental  state  goes  along  the  hne  of 
least  resistance?  Then,  when  a  girl  is  driven 
to  such  a  place,  practically  in  all  cases  she  looks 
upon  it  as  only  a  temporary  expedient.  She 
hopes  and  expects  somehow  to  redeem  her  mis- 
take before  it  becomes  known.  But  it  is  al- 
ways the  old  story .♦  It  is  just  like  the  drunk- 
ard who  goes  through  life  always  expecting  to 
reform.  He  firmly  believes  that  each  debauch 
will  be  his  last ;  but  he  does  not  realize  the  iron 


Why  the  "Unfortunate  Woman"     269 

grip  of  habit,  which  fastens  tighter  and  tighter 
upon  him,  and  that  each  time  he  indulges  he 
makes  another  indulgence  more  certain. 

If,  instead  of  building  so  many  libraries  and 
endowing  so  many  universities,  our  Carnegies 
and  Rockefellers  would  build  some  hotels  for 
women,  similar  to  the  Mills  hotels  for  men, 
what  a  wonderful  boon  it  would  be  for  thou- 
sands of  poor  girls  who  come  to  the  cities  seek- 
ing positions! 

Contrast  the  difference  in  the  great  city  of 
New  York,  for  instance,  between  the  provision 
made  for  youths  by  the  Young  Men's  Christian 
Associations  and  the  enormous  Mills  hotels, 
and  the  pitiable  lack  of  provision  for  poor, 
homeless,  defenceless  girls,  who  have  a  thou- 
sand more  temptations  than  men  and  who  are 
not  half  so  able  to  protect  themselves. 

Forty  or  fifty  years  ago  the  white  slave  traf- 
fic was  practically  unknown  in  this  country. 
The  enormous  influx  of  girls  and  women  into 
the  industrial  world  within  this  period  largely 
explains  its  introduction  among  us.  To-day 
about  sixty  per  cent,  of  all  the  young  women 
in  America  are  engaged  in  various  occupations, 
— and  our  present  economic  system  is  largely 


270  The  Crime  of  Silence 

responsible  for  their  exploitation  for  vicious 
purposes.  Commercial  greed  grinds  the  souls 
of  defenceless  girls  and  women  into  dividends 
and  compels  them  to  exist  on  starvation  wages, 
thus  exposing  them  to  all  sorts  of  perils  and 
temptations. 

Another  chief  aid  to  the  white  slave  traffic 
has  been  the  almost  criminal  custom  of  bring- 
ing up  girls  without  protecting  their  future  by 
making  them  self-supporting,  without  fitting 
them  to  earn  their  own  living  in  some  practical 
way. 

Parents  little  realize  what  a  terrible  thing  it 
is  to  let  girls  grow  up  without  learning  a  trade 
or  occupation  by  which  they  can  get  an  inde- 
pendent living  or  protect  their  self-respect  and 
dignity,  and  then  allow  them  to  drift  into  the 
city  to  struggle  as  best  they  can  for  an  ex- 
istence. When  comparatively  few  men,  even 
those  who  have  had  special  training,  are  able 
to  get  little  more  than  a  decent  living,  and  tens 
of  thousands  fail  to  do  that,  what  shall  we  say 
of  the  chances  of  the  tradeless,  occupationless, 
helpless  girls  who  are  thrown  unprepared  into 
the  modern  maelstrom  of  strife  and  selfish 
struggle  for  bread,  for  place,  and  for  power ! 


Why  the  "Unfortunate  Woman"     271 

Mothers  are  often  to  blame  for  this.  I 
know  some  of  them  who  would  never  even  let 
their  daughters  harden  or  redden  their  soft 
white  hands  by  washing  dishes  or  doing  house- 
woi^k.  They  would  do  the  drudgery  them- 
selves and  let  their  girls  sit  around  and  read 
silly  novels,  because  they  wanted  them  to  have 
an  easier  time  in  life  than  they  had  had.  Then, 
when  these  girls  grow  up  untrained,  untaught, 
unsophisticated,  ignorant  of  themselves,  igno- 
rant of  the  meaning  of  their  sex;  when,  per- 
haps, the  family  meets  with  reverses,  or  for 
some  reason  or  other  they  are  forced  to  find 
a  means  of  livelihood,  they  naturally  drift 
into  already  overcrowded  cities.  We  should 
not  wonder  that  so  many  of  them  fall  into  sin, 
but  rather  that  the  majority  of  them  are  saved 
from  this  terrible  fate. 

It  is  imperatively  necessary  that  all  parents, 
whether  rich  or  poor,  see  that  their  children, 
and  especially  their  daughters,  learn  a  trade, 
or  become  sufficiently  expert  in  some  occupa- 
tion to  enable  them  to  be  self-supporting. 
Even  the  daughters  of  wealthy  parents  are  not 
secure  from  sudden  changes  of  fortune,  and 
without  this  safeguard  and  assurance  for  her 


272  The  Crime  of  Silence 

future  in  this  age  of  specialization  and  fierce 
competition  a  girl  may  be  tremendously 
tempted  to  drift  into  vice. 

It  ought  to  be  a  misdemeanor  punishable  by 
law  to  allow  girls  to  go  out  into  the  world  to 
earn  a  living  without  all  the  possible  safeguards 
which  a  good  education,  good  moral  training, 
and  a  practical  knowledge  of  some  good  trade 
or  profession  can  supply.  Where  parents  are 
incompetent  or  unable  to  furnish  these  the 
State  should  see  to  it  that  no  girl  is  obliged  to 
face  life  without  being  thus  prepared  and  safe- 
guarded. 

"I  am  no  alarmist"  is  a  half-apologetic  ex- 
pression often  heard  in  the  speech  or  seen  in  the 
writings  of  many  who  deal  with  this  subject, 
but  the  writer  has  no  such  apology  to  make. 
As  with  "the  voice  of  one  crying  in  the  wilder- 
ness," he  wishes  to  warn  with  the  greatest  em- 
phasis of  which  words  are  capable  every  one 
under  the  stress  of  sexual  temptation,  but 
whose  feet  have  not  yet  slipped  or  have  slipped 
but  little  in  its  dubious  and  treacherous  paths. 
In  dealing  with  the  "white  slavery"  of  the 
twentieth  century,  he  would,  if  possible,  add 
fire  and  force  to  the  ringing  words  of  James 


Why  the  "Unfortunate  Woman"     273 

Russell  Lowell  in  dealing  with  the  black  slav- 
ery of  the  nineteenth  century : 

''In  God's  name  let  all  who  hear,  nearer  and 
nearer,  the  hungry  moan  of  the  storm  and  the 
growl  of  the  breakers,  speak  out!  But,  alasl 
we  have  no  right  to  interfere.  If  a  man  pluck 
an  apple  of  mine,  he  shall  be  in  danger  of  the 
justice;  but,  if  he  steal  my  brother,  I  must  be 
silent.  Who  says  this?  Our  Constitution, 
consecrated  by  the  callous  consuetude  of  sixty 
years,  and  grasped  in  triumphant  argument  by 
the  left  hand  of  him  whose  right  hand  clutches 
the  clotted  slave-whip.  Justice,  venerable 
with  the  undethronable  majesty  of  countless 
aeons,  says, — speak!  The  Past,  wise  with  the 
sorrows  and  desolations  of  ages,  from  amid  her 
shattered  fanes  and  wolf-housing  palaces, 
echoes, — speak!  Nature,  through  her  thou- 
sand trumpets  of  freedom,  her  stars,  her  sun- 
rises, her  seas,  her  winds,  her  cataracts,  her 
mountains  blue  with  cloudy  pines,  blows  jubi- 
lant encouragement,  and  cries, — speak  !  From 
the  soul's  trembling  abysses  the  still,  small 
voice  not  vaguely  murmurs, — speak!  But 
alas!  the  Constitution  and  the  Honorable  Mr. 
Bagowind,  M.C.,  say, — be  dumb!" 


274  The  Crime  of  Silence 

But  far  be  it  from  the  author  to  speak  or 
write  one  word  that  might  add  to  the  woes  of 
those  whose  feet  have  thus  slipped  and  who  are 
now  suffering  the  deplorable  consequences. 
Even  to  the  most  miserable,  the  most  remorse- 
ful, the  most  despairing  of  all  such  victims, 
"whose  eyes  fail  with  wakefulness  and  tears, 
and  ache  for  the  dark  house  and  the  long 
sleep,"  he  would  most  earnestly  and  reverently 
commend  the  pitying  words  of  Him  of  Naz- 
areth, who  came  to  save  the  lost  and  who  said, 
"Neither  do  I  condemn  thee;  go,  and  sin  no 
more," — also  the  words  of  the  Lord  of  All,  as 
quoted  by  the  prophet  Isaiah  i,  18,  "Though 
your  sins  be  as  scarlet,  they  shall  be  white  as 
snow;  though  they  be  red  like  crimson,  they 
shall  be  as  wool." 

The  night  is  mother  of  the  day, 

The  winter  of  the  spring. 
And  ever  upon  old  decay 

The  greenest  mosses  cling; 
Behind  the  cloud  the  starlight  lurks. 

Through  showers  the  sunbeams  fall. 
For  God,  who  loveth  all  His  works, 

Has  left  His  hope  with  all.— J.  G.  Whittier. 


i 


CHAPTER  XV 

PERILS   OF  THE   NEW   FREEDOM 

« It  is  the  little  rift  within  the  lute 

That  by  and  by  will  make  the  music  mute, 

And,  ever  widening,  slowly  silence  all." 

"If  I  had  a  daughter,"  said  the  late  Kyrle 
Belle w  to  an  interviewer,  "I  wouldn't  let  her 
get  within  speaking  distance  of  a  matinee 
actor,  but  I'd  let  her  go  to  the  matinee  and  fall 
in  love  with  the  hero  whenever  she  wanted  to. 
Not  with  the  actor,  you  know,  but  with  the  part 
he  plays ;  that's  the  difference,  and  it's  a  whole 
lot  of  difference,  too." 

In  these  words  Mr.  Belle w  showed  his  inti- 
mate knowledge  of  girl  nature,  and  also  his 
sympathy  with  its  romanticism. 

"It's  all  wrong,"  he  went  on,  "the  way  peo- 
ple talk  of  the  matinee  girl  and  her  folly. 
I've  seen  lots  of  good,  wholesome,  clever  girls 
dead  in  love  with  a  hero, — not  with  the  actor 

who  played  him,  but  with  the  hero, — and  the 

275 


276  The  Crime  of  Silence 

poor  fool  of  a  conceited  actor  misunderstood 
the  whole  affair. 

"A  little  slip  of  a  girl,  with  her  head  full  of 
fairy  tales,  goes  to  the  matinee.  She  lives  at 
home  with  a  father  who  reads  the  paper  all  the 
time  he's  in  the  house,  and  her  only  brother 
never  notices  her  at  all,  except  to  tweak  her 
hair  or  make  fun  of  all  her  timid  ideas. 

"When  the  hero  appears  the  little  girl  is  elec- 
trified. *Here,'  she  thinks,  ^here's  the  kind  of 
man  I've  dreamed  of.  He  fears  nothing,  he 
loves  with  all  his  heart,  he  doesn't  laugh  at  the 
idea  of  a  locket  and  a  ring.  Why,  he'd  die  for 
a  lock  of  his  lady's  hair.'  And  she  sits  and 
dreams  and  dreams,  dear  little  goose." 

Unfortunately  not  all  actors,  nor  does  the 
public  generally,  see  the  sometimes  silly  con- 
duct of  the  matinee  girl  in  its  true  light.  Girls 
are  often  severely  blamed  and  criticized  for  ac- 
tions and  words  which  are  merely  the  expres- 
sion of  hero  worship  or  romantic  idealism. 
But  it  is  true,  too,  that  there  are  many  girls 
who  overstep  the  limits  of  good  behavior,  and 
leave  themselves  open  to  well  deserved  criti- 
cism. 

The  freedom  accorded  to  girls  to-day,  as 


Perils  of  the  New  Freedom      277 

compared  with  the  restraints  imposed  upon 
their  sisters  of  half  or  a  quarter  of  a  century 
ago,  is  often  responsible  for  this.  Indeed,  it  is 
safe  to  say  that,  until  she  is  protected  by  the 
knowledge  that  will  save  her  from  the  snares 
and  pitfalls  of  life,  the  larger  liberty  the  mod- 
ern girl  enjoys  is,  in  many  instances,  a  source 
of  danger.  The  fact  that  our  girls  go  out 
into  the  world  with  very  little  training  and  few 
suggestions  regarding  the  risks  they  run  in 
mingling  with  men  in  business  life  of  whom 
they  know  practically  nothing;  the  mother's 
fatal  failure  to  instruct  her  daughter  regarding 
the  possible  curse  of  the  first  kiss,  the  first  cock- 
tail, or  the  slightest  familiarity  has  often  led  to 
sorrow  and  shame. 

How  little  the  average  girl  realizes  what  she 
is  doing  when  she  drinks  cocktails  with  men, 
even  at  a  respectable  hotel  or  restaurant.  The 
first  cocktail,  the  first  kiss,  or  the  first  embrace 
is  often  the  very  gateway  to  perdition. 

Not  long  ago  I  heard  a  man  reprove  a  girl 
companion  very  sharply  because  she  refused  to 
drink  a  cocktail.  She  told  him  that  she 
thought  her  mother  would  not  like  it,  to  which 
the  man  retorted  that,  if  she  ever  expected  to 


278  The  Crime  of  Silence 

have  a  good  time  in  life,  she  would  have  to  be 
a  ''good  fellow." 

Who  can  estimate  the  human  tragedies  that 
have  resulted  from  getting  such  false  notions 
of  comradeship  as  this !  Trying  to  be  a  "good 
fellow"  has  opened  the  door  to  ruin  for  multi- 
tudes of  young  girls. 

Many  a  light-hearted  girl  withput  the  slight- 
est idea  of  doing  wrong  goes  motoring  with  a 
comparative  stranger  and  does  not  even  hesi- 
tate to  stop  at  road  houses  for  refreshments. 
Or  she  will  attend  the  theatre  without  a 
chaperone  and  afterwards  go  to  wine  suppers, 
at  which  she  is  exposed  to  all  sorts  of  dangers 
of  which  she  is  totally  ignorant. 

Most  mothers  trust  their  daughters  too  im- 
plicitly even  to  think  they  could  ever  be  led 
astray,  no  matter  what  company  they  are 
thrown  in.  It  is  true  that  a  pure  heart  and 
the  power  of  self-control,  backed  by  wise  train- 
ing, will  protect  any  girl  under  almost  any  cir- 
cumstances anywhere  in  the  w^orld.  But  how 
many  girls  are  so  protected?  And  how  many 
mothers  have  any  idea  of  the  perils  which  their 
daughters  are  constantly  encountering,  and 
what   narrow   escapes  many   of  them  have? 


Perils  of  the  New  Freedom       279 

How  often  do  we  hear  ignorant,  well-meaning, 
girls  who  have  been  unfortunately  entangled 
weeping  bitter  tears  of  anguish  that  their 
mothers  never  told  them  of  the  risks  of  un- 
chaperoned  association  with  men! 

It  is  a  terrible  thing  to  send  girls  out  into  the 
world,  especially  the  business  world,  where  they 
come  in  constant,  close  contact  with  men,  with- 
out posting  them  in  regard  to  the  special  temp- 
tations and  perils  they  will  encounter.  Par- 
ents might  as  well  expect  that  lambs  would  be 
safe  in  pastures  infested  with  wolves  as  to  send 
ignorant,  innocent  young  girls  out  among  men, 
many  of  whom  are  brutal  and  sensual,  and  ex- 
pect them  to  remain  unharmed.  If  any 
human  being  in  this  world  should  be  pitied,  it 
is  an  ignorant,  unsophisticated  girl  or  young 
woman  exposed  to  its  dangerous  temptations. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  the  new  freedom  of 
girls,  with  much  less  of  the  old-time  chaperon- 
age,  the  multiplied  opportunities  and  facilities 
for  saying  rash  things,  fool  things  over  the  tele- 
phone; the  great  increase  in  number  of  places 
of  amusement,  such  as  moving  picture  shows, 
the  hotel  and  afternoon  teas,  where  dancing  is 
indulged  in,  and  especially  automobile  temp- 


280  The  Crime  of  Silence 

tations — all  these  things  give  girls  opportunity 
to  form  unfortunate  associations.  In  other 
words,  many  of  the  safeguards  formerly 
thrown  around  a  young  woman  have  been  re- 
moved, while  she  has  infinitely  greater  liber- 
ties, with  far  more  temptations  to  go  astray. 

While  this  new  and  larger  freedom  which 
girls  (who  carry  their  own  night  key)  all  over 
the  country  are  enjoying,  and  insisting  upon, 
will  result  in  great  good  to  those  who  have 
strong  characters  and  who  are  fortunate 
enough  to  have  intelligent  and  helpful  mothers, 
it  will  lead  to  infinite  harm  to  the  weak  daugh- 
ters of  weak  mothers,  who  do  not  appreciate 
its  dangers. 

A  New  York  mother  whom  I  know  has  been 
driven  almost  to  insanity  by  the  waywardness 
of  her  seventeen-year-old  daughter,  who,  un- 
der the  pretence  of  calling  on  friends,  goes 
alone  to  hotel  teas  and  cabaret  restaurants, 
where  she  has  formed  the  acquaintance  of  ques- 
tionable men,  with  whom  she  dances  and  goes 
automobile  riding.  The  girl  has  become  so 
fascinated  with  the  excitement,  and  what  she 
calls  the  fun  of  her  new  liberty,  that  she  pays 
no  attention  to  the  warnings  of  her  mother,  who 


Perils  of  the  New  Freedom      281 

doesn't  dare  to  tell  the  father,  a  very  stern  man, 
lest  he  should  disinherit  her.  Sometimes  this 
girl  does  not  get  home  until  two  or  three  o'clock 
in  the  morning,  or  remains  out  all  night  with 
her  girl  chums  and  then  resorts  to  all  sorts 
of  deceptions  to  keep  the  truth  from  her  fa- 
ther. 

Many  girls  insist  on  doing  as  this  one  does, 
going  out  unattended  to  all  sorts  of  places. 
They  meet  unprincipled  men  who  invite  them 
to  the  theatre  and  out  riding,  often  taking  them 
to  road  houses  and  inducing  them  to  drink  wine 
and  to  smoke  cigarettes.  Cases  have  been  re- 
ported during  the  past  year  of  unfortunate,  un- 
suspecting girls  who  have  been  drugged  in 
these  places  and  thus  led  to  their  ruin. 

Only  the  other  day  I  heard  a  beautiful 
young  woman  speak  of  girl  friends  who,  even 
though  they  were  chaperoned  at  balls  and 
dances,  would  take  occasion  when  they  were 
not  observed  to  slip  away  with  young  men  part- 
ners, and  go  out  motoring,  perhaps  for  an  hour 
or  two,  without  being  missed  or  exciting  the 
suspicion  of  their  chaperones. 

Now,  this  is  adding  deceit  to  imprudence, 
and  it  will  not  be  long  before  girls  who  indulge 


282  The  Crime  of  Silence 

in  escapades  of  this  kind  will  be  drawn  into 
others  far  more  serious  and  more  dangerous. 

One  would  think  that  the  frightful  experi- 
ences of  girls  like  Nan  Patterson,  the  Floro- 
dora  chorus  girl,  would  be  warning  enough  for 
hundreds  of  others  who  are  trying  to  see  how 
near  they  can  go  to  the  edge  of  the  precipice 
without  falling  over. 

The  allurements  of  a  gay  life,  the  passion 
for  admiration,  the  love  of  extravagance  and 
show,  not  the  love  of  wrongdoing,  led  to  the 
ruin  of  this  unfortunate  girl,  as  it  is  leading  to 
that  of  thousands  of  others. 

It  does  not  seem  possible  for  any  intelligent 
girl  to  go  on  doing  dangerous  things,  attend- 
ing champagne-stage  suppers,  motoring  at 
night  with  men  whom  she  barely  knows,  and  ex- 
posing herself  to '  unspeakable  risks  without 
realizing  where  it  will  all  end.  But  it  is  a  curi- 
ous fact  that,  when  people  are  in  the  midst  of 
a  whirl  of  dissipation,  they  are  blind  to  the  re- 
sults, they  cannot  see  what  others  see,  what 
others  know  will  be  the  inevitable  outcome. 
The  actors  in  the  game  seem  to  be  hypnotized. 
They  know  what  has  been  the  result  of  the 
pace  they  are  going  with  thousands  of  others. 


Perils  of  the  New  Freedom      283 

but  they  do  not  believe  it  is  going  to  be  the 
same  with  them.  It  is  the  old  story  of  the 
young  man  who  drinks.  He  thinks  that  he  can 
stop  drinking  any  time,  can  reform  when  he 
pleases,  but  everybody  else  knows  that  he  is 
being  grasped  more  and  more  firmly  in  the 
clutches  of  the  tyrant  habit,  and  that  every  day 
that  goes  by  makes  it  less  and  less  probable 
that  he  will  ever  escape  from  them.  There  is 
something  about  the  light  and  glare,  the  lure  of 
dissipation,  which  not  only  makes  one  blind  to 
all  its  dangers,  but  also  hides  from  him  the 
havoc  that  it  is  playing  in  his  life. 

Another  danger  of  the  new  girl's  greater 
freedom  is  that  it  tends  to  make  her  too  inde- 
pendent of  other  people's  opinions.  She  is  apt 
to  think  that  she  is  just  as  free  as  her  brother, 
and  can  do  the  same  things  that  he  does  with 
the  same  impunity,  which  is  practically  not 
the  case. 

It  may  be  a  false  standard  of  ethics,  but  it 
is  unfortunately  true  that,  if  a  girl  is  indiscreet 
and  happens  to  make  a  mistake,  if  she  appears 
at  some  questionable  place,  no  matter  how  in- 
nocent she  may  be  of  wrongdoing,  if  she  is 
seen  with  a  man  who  has  a  bad  reputation,  she 


284  The  Crime  of  Silence 

is  quickly  gossiped  about  and  her  character  as- 
sailed. 

Again,  many  girls  call  up  men  over  the  tele- 
phone during  business  hours  and  talk  to  them 
as  freely  as  their  brothers  talk  to  their  men 
friends.  After  a  while  they  acquire  the  tele- 
phone habit,  the  habit  of  calling  up  male  ac- 
quaintances and  saying  things  to  them  just  be- 
cause they  are  at  a  distance  which  they  would 
not  think  of  saying  in  a  letter  or  if  they  were 
speaking  face  to  face.  We  all  have  more  or 
less  what  we  might  call  long-distance  courage ; 
it  is  so  easy  to  say  things  over  the  telephone, 
when  one  is  far  away,  which  modesty  and  sen- 
sitiveness would  restrain  one  from  saying  at 
close  range.  While  the  telephone  has  proved 
an  untold  blessing  to  milHons,  it  has  been  the 
undoing  of  a  great  many  modest,  good-inten- 
tioned  girls ;  and  this  is  especially  true  of  girls 
who  were  brought  up  in  very  strict  homes, 
where  the  parents  would  not  allow  them  any 
liberties,  nor  tell  them  why  they  considered  it 
necessary  to  be  so  strict  in  their  surveillance. 

Most  girls  know  that  they  should  not  do  in- 
discreet things,  but  thej^  do  not  begin  to  know 
how  fatally,  how  tragically  wrong  these  things 


Perils  of  the  New  Freedom      285 

may  be.  Heedless  of  public  opinion  in  doing 
foolish  or  imprudent  things,  many  of  them  say 
that  they  don't  care  what  people  think  or  say 
of  them.  "She  did  not  care  what  people  said," 
would  make  a  fitting  epitaph  for  many  a  girl 
who  has  gone  wrong.  It  is  not  always  enough 
to  be  conscious  that  we  are  innocent;  not 
enough  to  know  that  we  do  what  is  right;  we 
must  not  put  ourselves  in  questionable  posi- 
tions. Girls  should  avoid  the  appearance  of 
evil,  avoid  questionable  situations,  avoid  the 
company  of  men  of  known  bad  character. 
Nor  should  they  carry  on  silly  conversations 
over  the  telephone  with  men  whom  they  barely 
know. 

A  girl  who  doesn't  care  what  people  say 
about  her,  does  not  realize  that  gossip  has  a 
multitude  of  tongues,  and  that  bad  things  said 
about  people  are  infinitely  more  contagious 
than  good  things.  She  does  not  realize  how 
much  her  welfare,  her  success  in  life  depends 
upon  what  people  think  of  her.  No  one  is  in- 
dependent of  the  opinion  of  others  any  more 
than  a  drop  of  water  in  the  ocean  is  independ- 
ent of  the  other  drops.  Even  the  appearance 
of  evil  should  be  shunned. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

woman's  cruelty  to  woman 

Charity  is  the  brightest  star  in  the  Christian's  diadem. 

Don't  look  for  the  flaws  as  you  go  through  life. 

And,  even  when  you  find  them. 
It's  wise  and  kind  to  be  somewhat  blind 

And  look  for  the  virtues  behind  tliera. 

— Ella  Wheeler  Wilcox. 

But  still  believe  that  story  wrong 
Which  ought  not  to  be  true. — SnERroAN. 

Then  gently  scan  your  brother  man. 

Still  gentler  sister  woman; 
Though  they  may  gang  a  trifle  wrang, 

To  step  aside  is  human: 
One  point  must  still  be  greatly  dark, 

The  moving  why  they  do  it; 
And  just  as  lamely  can  ye  mark 

How  far,  perhaps,  they  rue  it. 

— Robert  Burns. 

In  a  recent  investigation  by  the  Woman's 
and  Child's  Wage  Earning  Association,  it  was 
found  that  a  majority  of  the  girls  who  go 
wrong  come  from  the  domestic  service.     The 

286 


Woman's  Cruelty  to  Woman     287 

chief  reasons  assigned  for  this  were  long  hours, 
the  monotony  of  the  work,  dark,  gloomy  sleep- 
ing rooms,  and  no  place  in  which  to  receive 
company. 

The  report  will  come  as  a  great  surprise  to 
many,  especially  to  the  employers  of  domestic 
servants  and  to  those  who  are  fond  of  painting 
in  glowing  colors  the  sheltered,  fortunate,  and,^ 
on  the  whole,  happy  life  of  the  average  girl 
who  does  housework. 

When  shop  or  factory  girls  complain  of  low 
wages  and  long  hours,  they  are  asked,  by  those 
who  take  this  roseate  view  of  the  life  of  house 
servants,  why  they  don't  give  up  their  weari- 
some, ill  paid  toil  and  work  in  a  family  where 
they  will  be  well  fed,  well  housed,  and  well 
paid;  in  short,  where  they  will  have  the  com- 
forts of  a  good  home,  with  no  temptations  to 
draw  them  from  the  straight  and  narrow  path. 

If  these  good  people  who  think  the  lives  of 
domestic  servants  are  so  desirable  could  only 
take  their  places,  for  a  week  or  two,  they  would, 
in  all  probability,  revise  their  opinion.  If  the 
average  house  mistress  only  realized  how  ut- 
terly dependent  upon  her  are  her  servants  for 
their  social  life,  their  opportunities  for  recrea- 


288  The  Crime  of  Silence 

tion,  for  development,  for  anything  that  is 
bright  and  cheerful  in  their  lives,  her  attitude 
toward  them  might  be  very  different. 

I  would  not  imply  that  all  mistresses  are  in- 
different to,  and  have  no  thought  or  care  for, 
the  welfare  and  happiness  of  their  servants. 
Nor  would  I  suggest  that  all  servants  are  un- 
happy and  discontented.  Far  from  it.  There 
are  some  kind  and  thoughtful  mistresses,  some 
happy  and  contented  maids.  But,  without  en- 
tering upon  a  discussion  of  the  much  debated 
servant  question,  the  report  of  the  investigation 
committee  of  the  Woman's  and  Child's  Wage 
Earning  Association  would  certainly  indicate 
that  thoughtless  mistresses  and  discontented 
maids  are  in  the  majority. 

Can  we  wonder,  when  we  stop  to  think  how 
little  encouragement,  inspiration  or  apprecia- 
tion the  average  domestic  servant  gets  out  of 
her  work,  which  is  usually  dreary,  monotonous 
drudgery? 

The  pathetic  side  of  the  whole  servant  prob- 
lem, which  has  been  before  the  public  so  long, 
is  that  the  girls  in  domestic  work  are  shut  out, 
practically,  from  human  relationship.  They 
have  little  or  no  opportunity  for  social  inter- 


Woman's  Cruelty  to  Woman     289 

course,  for  clean  companionship  with  the  op- 
posite sex.  They  meet  their  male  acquaint- 
ances or  friends  under  unfavorable,  often  dan- 
gerous conditions.  The  very  lack  of  a  proper 
place  to  receive  friends  or  callers  makes  their 
social  life  abnormal. 

How  would  you  feel,  you  mistresses,  who  are 
often  so  hard  and  unsympathetic  with  your 
servants,  if  your  own  daughter  had  to  receive 
her  men  friends  in  a  dingy  kitchen,  with  noth- 
ing but  hard,  wooden  chairs  to  sit  on,  and  per- 
haps not  enough  of  these?  Suppose  she  was 
not  even  allowed  to  receive  callers  in  the 
kitchen,  and  could  only  stand  out  in  the  alley- 
way or  go  with  them  to  a  public  park,  or  meet 
them  in  cheap  dance  halls !  Would  you  not  be 
unhappy  and  miserable  about  her?  You  for- 
get that  your  servant  girls  have  just  the  same 
longing  for  affection,  the  same  yearning  for  a 
home  of  their  own,  the  same  desire  for  social 
intercourse  as  your  daughter. 

Kipling  says:  "The  Colonel's  lady  and 
Judy  O'Grady  are  sisters  under  their  skin." 
Whether  in  a  palace  or  a  hovel,  in  the  breast 
of  a  fine  lady  or  that  of  a  poor  working  girl,  the 
human  heart  has  the  same  craving,  the  same 


290  The  Crime  of  Silence 

desire  for  love,  companionship.  The  human 
mind,  without  distinction  of  class  or  race,  is  so 
constituted  that  it  must  have  variety;  our  pas- 
sions, longings  and  desires  all  clamor  for  ex- 
pression, and  if  they  are  denied,  there  is  star- 
vation going  on  in  the  nature.  How  can  you 
expect  your  servants  to  be  normal  when  their 
whole  life  is  one-sided;  when  many  sides  of 
their  nature,  those  which  you  are  constantly  de- 
veloping and  feeding  in  yourself,  are  practi- 
cally never  appealed  to  in  them?  Their 
pent-up  desires,  their  yearnings,  whatever  they 
may  be,  are  unexpressed,  and  these  feelings  are 
dangerous  when  thus  repressed,  for  they  will 
seek  an  outlet  in  other  directions,  often  in  for- 
bidden ways. 

Mrs.  Mary  Hutton  Pell,  recognizing  the 
importance  of  this  seldom  considered  phase  of 
the  question,  has  solved  it  entirely  to  her  own 
satisfaction  and  that  of  her  servants.  In  a  re- 
cent interview  on  the  subject  she  said,  "People 
are  all  the  time  wailing  about  the  servant  prob- 
lem, but  they  never  try  to  solve  the  question. 
Nothing  has  ever  been  done  for  the  domestic 
servant.     Workers  in  all  other  hues  have  been 


Woman's  Cruelty  to  Woman     291 

helped  in  various  ways;  the  shop  girl,  the  fac- 
tory workers  have  amusements  provided  for 
them,  different  kinds  of  welfare  work  have 
been  organized  for  them,  but  there  is  never 
anything  for  the  domestic  servant.  Instead 
of  helping  the  servants,  we  degrade  them. — 
There  is  no  other  class  of  workers  whose  gen- 
eral condition  has  such  an  important  bearing 
upon  family  life,  and  there  are  no  other  work- 
ers so  little  known.  We  never  think  of  doing 
anything  for  their  amusement  or  seeing  that 
they  have  any  diversion." 

Another  progressive  woman,  Mrs.  Ellen 
Trask,  says :  "It  is  not  so  much  the  maids  who 
need  training  as  the  mistresses.  Women  have 
for  so  long  a  time  kept  their  housemaids  in  a 
state  of  semi-bondage  that  they  cannot  seem  to 
realize  that  it  may  be  possible  to  alter  the  con- 
ditions in  some  way  that  will  give  satisfaction 
to  both. 

*'It  is  easy  to  train  young  girls  to  be  good 
housekeepers.  It  is  the  natural  work  of 
women,  and  many  of  them  love  it.  But,  so 
long  as  girls  are  expected  to  be  inmates  night 
and  day   of   some   other  woman's  home,  no 


292  The  Crime  of  Silence 

matter  how  luxurious  it  may  be  or  how  well 
they  may  be  treated,  the  problem  will  remain  a 
problem. 

**Is  there  any  other  work  where  the  employee 
is  expected  to  be  under  the  constant  super- 
vision of  her  employer?  If  only  some  one  can 
devise  a  way  to  bring  the  two  into  more  equable 
relations  with  each  other,  there  will  be  hope  of 
solving  the  problem. 

"We  don't  need  to  have  ignorant  girls  fresh 
from  a  foreign  country  in  our  homes.  We  can 
have  intelligent  girls,  trained  in  our  own 
schools,  if  we  make  the  conditions  right  for 
them.  Shall  we  continue  in  the  old  way,  or 
shall  we  use  the  same  intelligence  which  is  used 
in  the  suffrage  problem  and  find  the  remedy?" 

One  of  the  chief  troubles  in  this  whole  ques- 
tion is  that  the  average  mistress  forgets,  in 
dealing  with  her  maids,  that  "man  does  not  live 
by  bread  alone,"  and  that  even  where  the  ma- 
terial conditions  are  all  right  there  is  a  human, 
a  social  side  to  the  girls  who  work  in  her  home 
that  clamors  for  recognition,  for  expression. 
While  society  is  pushing  onward  in  every  other 
direction,  and  education  is  lifting  the  humble 
and  lowly  born  to  positions  of  honor  and  great 


Woman's  Cruelty  to  Woman      293 

responsibility,  this  side  of  the  servant  problem 
remains  where  it  was.  There  is  no  hopeful 
outlook,  no  chance  of  advancement  in  the  life 
of  the  houseworker,  and  women  can  not  shirk 
responsibility  for  this.  They  are  largely  to 
blame,  and,  until  they  recognize  the  social 
rights  of  the  domestic  class,  their  equality,  at 
least  on  broad  human  lines,  with  themselves, 
the  servant  problem  will  remain  unsolved. 
Mistresses  must  also  take  their  share  of  re- 
sponsibility for  the  fall  of  so  many  girls  in  this 
class. 

What  are  the  chances,  for  example,  that  a 
really  intelligent  servant  girl,  who,  perhaps  has 
come  out  of  a  good  home  in  the  country,  will, 
under  the  conditions  of  her  new  life  in  the  aver- 
age city  home,  meet  a  man  whom  she  would 
care  to  marry?  Her  very  situation  prejudices 
the  men  who  are  her  equals.  Her  very  lack  of 
opportunity  probably  bars  her  from  making  a 
suitable  marriage.  She  realizes  this,  and  it  is 
especially  brought  home  to  her  when  she  feels 
that  she  is  getting  along  in  years;  that,  per- 
haps, her  attractiveness  is  being  burned  up  over 
the  cook  stove  and  wasted  over  the  washtub; 
and    that    she    is    growing   prematurely    old 


294  The  Crime  of  Silence 

because  her  girlhood  is  being  crushed  out  from 
lack  of  recreation,  from  the  unvarying  monot- 
ony of  her  long  daily  routine. 
•  Is  it  strange  that  girls  thus  circumstanced 
grasp  even  at  the  counterfeit  of  love,  that 
which  comes  nearer  than  anything  else  in  their 
lives  to  resembling  the  real  affection  which 
they  crave?  They  drift  from  their  cold,  dark, 
ugly  quarters  to  where  there  is  at  least  life  and 
activity.  Though  degrading,  there  is  some- 
thing human  in  it  for  which  their  natures  are 
starving.  They  do  not  yet  know  all  its  awful 
wretchedness.  They  have  not  yet  drunk  the 
bitterest  dregs  from  their  cup. 

"Man's  inhumanity  to  man  makes  countless 
thousands  mourn,"  says  Burns;  but  what  of 
woman's  inhumanity  to  woman  ? 

Woman's  cruelty  to  woman  is  responsible 
for  a  great  many  domestic  servants  drifting 
into  disreputable  houses.  Women  generally 
have  accepted  the  double  standard  established 
by  man,  with  its  exoneration  of  the  male 
wrongdoer  and  ostracism  of  the  woman. 

Some  one  has  said  that  "no  one  else  can  be  so 
hard  as  a  good  woman,"  and  in  the  case  of  a 
fallen  sister  this  is,  alas!  too  often  true.     I 


Woman's  Cruelty  to  Woman     295 

have  heard  good  women  condemn  in  the  harsh- 
est and  bitterest  terms  young  girls  who  were 
led  astray  in  the  first  instance  by  men  old 
enough  to  be  their  fathers,  in  some  instances, 
their  grandfathers,  with  never  a  word  of  blame 
for  the  men. 

When  a  husband,  a  son,  or  a  brother  goes 
Avrong,  where  does  the  wife,  the  mother,  or  the 
sister  place  the  blame  ?  Is  it  not  invariably  on 
"the  other  woman,"  that  "horrid"  other  woman 
who  tempted  the  poor,  helpless  innocent  man! 
How  could  a  grandfather,  or  father,  protect 
himself  from  the  wiles  of  that  young  Delilah? 
It  was  she  who  tempted  him,  and  he  did,  like 
Adam,  "eat  of  the  forbidden  fruit."  No  mat- 
ter if  Delilah  be  but  fifteen,  and  Samson  be 
fifty,  no  matter  if  his  long  experience  in  hypno- 
tizing innocent  girls  (whose  mothers  had  never 
posted  them  regarding  their  own  sex  nature) 
placed  the  young  girl  at  a  criminal  disadvan- 
tage, it  is  she  who  should  have  known  better, 
she  who  should  have  been  able  to  withstand 
temptation,  she  who  should  have  shown  herself 
of  the  stronger  sex,  not  of  the  weaker.  Her 
passions?  Why,  she  has  none, — or,  at  least, 
according  to  man's  theory  regarding  her, — 


296  The  Crime  of  Silence 

which  women  have  meekly  accepted, — she 
should  have  none.  It  is  the  man  only  who  has 
passions  to  fight,  temptations  to  conquer. 
The  woman  is  simply  weak  and  vicious;  she 
acts  out  of  pure  wantonness ! 

Women  have  certainly  learned  well  the  les- 
son that  has  been  taught  them  for  centuries, 
that  began  with  our  father  Adam,  when,  after 
enjoying  his  apple,  he  tried  to  shield  himself 
from  the  anger  of  his  Lord  by  putting  all  the 
blame  for  their  joint  disobedience  on  our  poor 
Mother  Eve, — "The  woman  did  tempt  me  and 
I  did  eat!" 

So  when  a  woman  discovers  that  a  servant 
has  been  betrayed  by  her  lover  (often  because 
she  had  no  decent  place  in  which  to  receive  her 
male  friends),  instead  of  protecting  the  girl, 
trying  to  help  her  out  of  a  trouble  which  she 
feels  will  ruin  her  life,  instead  of  trying  to 
shield  her  by  getting  a  place  for  her  in  the 
country  or  in  a  hospital,  she  turns  her  out  with 
abusive  language,  telling  her  that  she  is  unfit 
to  associate  with  human  beings. 

If  there  is  ever  a  time  when  a  girl  who  is 
alone  in  the  world,  whose  very  longing  for  af- 
fection, for  some  one  to  love  her,  has,  perhaps, 


Woman's  Cruelty  to  Woman      297 

led  her  into  trouble,  needs  the  sympathy,  the 
protection,  the  shielding  which  her  mistress 
could  give  her,  it  is  when  she  is  in  this  condi- 
tion. 

Is  it  any  wonder  that  so  many  of  these 
frightened,  friendless  girls,  who  dare  not  whis- 
per their  trouble  to  any  human  being,  commit 
suicide,  or  that  they  become  objects  of  public 
charity,  or,  when  they  leave  the  hospital,  drift 
through  the  only  door  that  seems  open  to  them  ? 

Frank  Moss,  Assistant  District  Attorney  of 
Xew  York,  tells  a  pathetic  story  of  a  Ger- 
man girl  who  was  living  with  Wolter,  the  de- 
generate murderer  of  Ruth  Wheeler,  the  fif- 
teen-year-old girl  whom  he  lured  to  his  rooms 
by  an  advertisement  for  a  stenographer. 
When  summoned  as  a  witness  in  the  murder 
trial,  this  German  girl,  in  answer  to  the  ques- 
tion whether  she  loved  Wolter,  said  "Yes." 
"Then  you  will  probably  not  tell  the  truth 
about  him,"  said  Mr.  Moss.  "The  truth?"  she 
cried.  "I  must  tell  the  truth  whatsoever  the 
results,"  and  she  did. 

After  the  trial  Mr.  Moss  said  he  was  so  af- 
fected by  the  girl's  honesty  and  pitied  her  so  in 
her  awful  plight  that  he  asked  her  if  she  could 


298  The  Crime  of  Silence 

not  go  to  friends  or  relatives  when  she  had 
testified  and  was  released  from  the  House  of 
Detention.  "No,  Mr.  Moss,"  replied  the  girl, 
"I  have  not  a  friend  in  America  who  would 
shield  me  or  do  anything  for  me."  The  kind- 
hearted  lawyer  involuntarily  kissed  her  hand, 
and  told  her  "You  have  one  friend  left."  He, 
with  others,  assisted  her  to  get  a  position,  and 
every  little  while  she  reported  at  his  office. 

After  a  few  months  she  came  to  him  one  day 
with  her  little  son  in  her  arms,  accompanied  by 
a  big,  robust  German,  who  said  he  wanted  to 
marry  her.  Mr.  Moss  asked  the  man  if  he 
knew  her  history.  He  said  he  did,  but  that 
he  loved  her  and  wanted  to  make  her  his  wife. 
The  pair  were  married,  and  the  District  At- 
torney, with  Mr.  Moss  and  all  the  other  as- 
sistant attorneys,  attended  the  wedding.  A 
short  time  after  the  husband  came  to  the  Dis- 
trict Attorney's  office  and  told  him  that  he 
wanted  legally  to  adopt  his  wife's  boy,  to  edu- 
cate him,  and  bring  him  up  right. 

Tens  of  thousands  of  girls  could  be  rescued 
as  this  German  girl  was  if  they  only  had  a 
little  friendly  sympathy  and  the  aid  of  good 
people.     But    they    are    cruelly    and    almost 


Woman's  Cruelty  to  Woman     299 

criminally  treated  as  outcasts  by  the  very  peo- 
ple who  could  help  them. 

It  is  doubtful  if  any  normal  girl  ever  goes 
willingly  into  a  vicious  life  with  the  least  idea 
of  remaining  in  it.  But,  unfortunately,  when 
girls  once  get  into  it,  they  very  rarely  leave  it. 
A  sense  of  shame  and  the  gradual  loss  of  self- 
respect  undermine  their  will  power ;  and,  when 
they  realize  that  it  would  be  almost  impossible 
to  face  the  world  again,  when  almost  every- 
body shuns,  scorns  and  denounces  the  girl  who 
has  made  a  mistake,  they  give  themselves  up 
for  lost. 

The  totally  wrong  view  society  takes  of  this 
whole  question  is  responsible  for  thousands  of 
girls  remaining  in  an  evil  life  when  they  long 
to  get  away  from  their  horrible  experiences. 
They  know  how  they  would  be  despised  by  so- 
ciety; that  there  would  be  no  chance  for  them 
again  in  the  world  outside;  and  they  think  all 
they  can  do  is  to  continue  to  live  in  the  under- 
world and  to  get  as  much  out  of  their  wretched 
life  as  possible.  People  outside  know  nothing 
of  the  terrible  suffering  of  these  girls,  the  tor- 
turing existence  they  lead,  especially  during 
the  first  months  of  their  debauchery.     Every 


800  The  Crime  of  Silence 

day,  until  their  self-respect  has  died  out  of 
them,  many  of  them  ciy  their  hearts  out  for 
the  sight,  the  caress  of  loved  ones  whom  they 
will  never  see  again. 

Happily  there  are  signs  of  a  widespread 
awakening  in  regard  to  this  whole  question 
of  sexual  immorality.  The  tendency  is  to  be 
more  merciful  to  the  woman  who  has  gone 
wrong  and  to  put  the  chief  blame  where,  in 
most  cases,  it  belongs,  on  the  man.  While  the 
conservative,  the  narrow-minded  and  the  igno- 
rant still  cling  to  the  prescribed  masculine 
ethics  of  the  double  standard,  with  its  blind  in- 
justice and  immorality,  progressive  women, 
women  of  education  and  intelligence,  are  being 
aroused  to  a  sense  of  the  iniquity  of  the  tradi- 
tional attitude  toward  the  fallen  woman. 
They  are  taking,  rather,  the  attitude  of  Eliz- 
abeth Fry  in  her  work  among  the  women  in 
English  prisons  a  century  ago.  These  unfor- 
tunates worshipped  that  noble  Quaker  lady, 
and  a  friend  visiting  Newgate  one  day  in 
company  with  her,  being  struck  by  the  affec- 
tionate manner  of  the  prisoners  toward  her, 
inquired  for  what  crimes  the  women  had  been 


Woman's  Cruelty  to  Woman     801 

convicted.  "I  do  not  know,"  was  the  reply. 
"I  have  never  asked  them  that.  We  all  have 
come  short." 

Women's  clubs,  Social  Settlements,  Rescue 
Homes,  the  Salvation  Army,  and  great  bodies 
of  Church  workers  all  over  the  country  are  do- 
ing an  immense  amount  of  good  in  rescuing 
women  and  girls  from  lives  of  shame  and  put- 
ting them  in  positions  where  they  will  be  self- 
supporting  and  free  from  temptations. 

At  a  recent  meeting  of  clubwomen,  members 
of  the  Salvation  Army  and  other  social  work- 
ers in  New  York,  to  establish  additional  facili- 
ties for  rescue  work,  Mrs.  Robbins  Lau  re- 
marked, "Men  have  said  that  woman's  worst 
enemy  is  woman.  It  is  possible  that  this  re- 
buke was  merited  in  the  past,  but  I  believe  the 
clubwomen  of  New  York  are  now  making  an 
honest  effort  to  remove  the  cause  of  the  re- 
proach." 

Mrs.  William  Grant  Brown,  another  well- 
known  clubwoman  who  spoke  at  the  meeting, 
said:  "At  some  remote  period  men  may  be 
depended  upon  absolutely  to  respect  the  purity 
of  women,  but  until  that  time  arrives  we  must 


302  The  Crime  of  Silence 

try  to  do  something  to  repair  the  injury  done 
through  the  wickedness  of  men  and  the  frailty 
of  their  victims." 

But  it  was  Brigadier  Brown,  of  the  Salva- 
tion Army,  who  touched  the  most  vital  part  of 
the  matter,  and,  even  at  the  risk  of  unduly 
dwelHng  on  this  phase  of  the  question,  I  cannot 
forbear  quoting  her  in  part.  "The  most  ag- 
gravating problem  which  confronts  us  in  this 
work,"  she  said,  *'is  how  to  keep  our  daughters 
safe  after  they  have  been  rescued.  You  know 
the  world  is  very  cruel.  It  is  cruel  without  in- 
tending to  be  so.  In  its  indifference  it  often 
inflicts  mortal  wounds,  and  the  girl  who  has  en- 
dured struggles  and  gone  through  trials  which 
are  known  only  to  her  class  often  succumbs. 

"In  sickness  she  has  nowhere  to  go,  and 
when  thrown  out  of  employment  she  is  at  a 
greater  disadvantage  than  is  she  who  has  never 
violently  fractured  the  moral  law. 

"Of  course  the  Salvation  Army  does  not  be- 
lieve in  coddling  or  nursing  the  unfortunate  or 
the  wi'ongdoer.  We  peremptorily  insist  on 
everybody  working.  We  believe  work  is  ab- 
solutely necessary  to  the  construction  and 
preservation  of  a  morally  healthy  as  well  as  a 


Woman's  Cruelty  to  Woman      303 

physically  healthy  citizenship.  But  how  nice 
it  would  be  for  a  girl  who  has  taken  a  wayward 
step  to  be  assured  that  she  has  a  heart  and  a 
home  to  come  to  in  case  of  dire  need!" 

Too  much  cannot  be  said  in  praise  of  the 
rescue  work  that  is  being  done  by  many  de- 
voted women  all  over  the  country.  But  our 
great  aim  must  be  total  abolition  of  sexual  vice, 
— ^the  prevention  of  immorality  rather  than 
healing  its  ravages. 

Employers  can  do  a  great  deal  to  stem  the 
tide  of  immorality  which  statisticians  have 
found  in  the  domestic  field.  There  is  a  move- 
ment on  foot  for  the  rehabilitation  and  uplift 
of  the  workers  in  this  most  conservative  and 
tradition-bound  of  all  fields  of  employment. 
Mistresses  on  the  one  hand,  and  maids  on  the 
other,  are  forming  organizations  for  a  general 
campaign  of  betterment.  More  and  better 
education  along  scientific  lines  for  the  maids; 
more  consideration,  and  better  provision  for 
their  social  needs  on  the  part  of  the  mistresses, 
is  the  slogan  of  this  movement.  We  need  bet- 
ter educated,  better  trained  women  in  this  most 
important  branch  of  social  service.  We  shall 
get  them  when  the  relations  of  mistress  and 


304  The  Crime  of  Silence 

maid,  or  rather  employer  and  employee,  are  on 
a  different  basis,  and  the  hours  of  work  are 
regulated  and  systematized  as  they  are  in  all 
other  legitimate  businesses.  Then  the  social 
stigma  that  attaches  to  domestic  work  will  be 
removed,  and  the  domestic  employee  will  take 
her  proper  place  as  one  of  the  most  useful  and 
important  of  all  public  or  private  servants. 

Who  made  the  heart,  'tis  He  alone 

Decidedly  can  try  us, 
He  knows  each  chord, — its  various  tone, 

Each  spring, — its  various  bias: 
Then  at  the  balance  let's  be  mute. 

We  never  can  adjust  it; 
What's  dons  we  partly  may  compute. 

But  know  not  what's  resisted. — Robert  Buens. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

THE  DAMNABLE   DOUBLE   STANDARD 

There  is  no  sex  in  morals. 

Whatever  is  morally  right  for  a  man  to  do  is  morally  right 
for  a  woman  to  do;  I  recognize  no  rights  but  human  rights. 

— Angelina  Grimke  Weld. 

Recently,  we  are  told,  a  woman  standing 
high  in  the  social  circles  of  her  city  crossed  off 
the  names  of  two  young  men  from  her  invita- 
tion list.  The  action  was  bound  to  be  noticed, 
and  it  was.  Several  friends  went  to  her  and 
pleaded  for  the  young  men.  "Of  course  it  is 
unfortunate,"  they  argued,  "that  they  are  not 
just  what  they  should  be,  but  you  are  very 
likely  to  drive  them  farther  toward  ruin  by 
your  action  in  so  publicly  calling  attention  to 
their  habits  by  excluding  them  from  your  so- 
cial affairs."  The  social  leader  listened. 
"No,"  she  said,  firmly,  "you  are  wrong.  We 
have  all  been  wrong  in  opening  the  doors  of  our 
houses  to  them.  I  warned  both  of  them  that 
I  would  do  this  if  they  did  not  mend  their  ways ; 

305 


306  The  Crime  of  Silence 

and,  while  they  listened  respectfully,  they  went 
right  on.  For  the  sake  of  my  own  two  daugh- 
ters, and  the  daughters  of  other  mothers  who 
come  to  my  house,  my  doors  are  closed  to 
them."  The  woman's  stand  had  the  effect  of 
helping  more  timid  and  wavering  mothers,  and 
before  the  season  was  over  practically  every 
door  was  closed  to  the  young  men. 

If  all  women  would  unite  in  taking  the  stand 
adopted  by  this  social  leader  toward  male  sex- 
ual sinners,  the  most  damnable  feature  of  our 
civilization,  the  double  standard  of  morals, 
which  makes  a  woman  an  outcast  for  the  im- 
morality which  is  overlooked  in  a  man,  would 
soon  be  a  thing  of  the  past. 

It  seems  almost  incredible  that  this  vilely  un- 
just standard  should  have  endured  so  long; 
that,  in  Christian  countries,  among  the  follow- 
ers of  that  Christ  who  so  clearly  condemned  it, 
a  man  should  be  socially  ostracized  for  com- 
paratively minor  criminal  offences,  yet  be  rot- 
ten with  sexual  immorality  and  still  have  access 
to  the  best  homes;  while  a  woman  who  makes 
the  least  false  step  in  this  direction  should  be- 
come a  pariah. 

Is  there  any  colorable  pretext  for  such  a  dis- 


The  Damnable  Double  Standard    307 

tinction?  Are  the  effects  of  impurity  in  a  man 
less  disastrous  than  in  a  woman?  Is  there  any 
sex  in  principle?  Is  there  any  reason  why  a 
man  should  have  license  to  drag  himself 
through  licentious  mire  any  more  than  a 
woman?  A  thousand  times,  no!  It  would  be 
loosening  the  very  foundations  of  virtue  to 
countenance  the  notion  that,  because  of  the  dif- 
ference in  sex,  men  are  at  libert}^  to  set  morality 
at  defiance  and  to  do  with  impunity  that  which, 
if  done  by  women,  would  stain  the  latter's  char- 
acter and  make  them  outcasts  forever.  All 
right-minded  people  must  agree  with  Ange- 
lina Grimke  Weld  that  "whatever  is  morally 
right  for  a  man  to  do  is  morally  right  for  a 
woman  to  do ;  I  recognize  no  rights  but  human 
rights." 

It  is  because  human  rights  have  been  ignored 
in  the  past,  because  one  sex  has  arrogated  all 
rights,  all  power,  to  itself,  and  dominated  the 
other  sex,  that  we  have  the  absurd  and  mon- 
strous paradox  of  a  double  standard  of  morals. 

In  the  past,  human  society  has  been  man- 
made,  with  the  exception  of  a  little  dash  here 
and  there  of  the  feminine  which  woman  has 
been  allowed  to  slip  in  because  it  favored  man's 


308  The  Ckime  of  Silence 

own  pleasures.  Because  they  have  had  the 
power,  men  have  always  made  a  great  distinc- 
tion between  male  and  female  sex  offenders. 
They  have  always  sought  security  for  their  own 
moral  lapses.  They  are  responsible  for  the 
wicked  difference  in  public  opinion  regarding 
the  sins  of  the  two  sexes, — for  the  unjust  sex 
distinction  which  has  encouraged  and  promoted 
immorality  and  given  license  to  vice  through 
all  the  centuries. 

Discussing  the  status  of  woman  in  China  and 
its  underlying  causes,  Prof.  E.  A.  Ross,  in  his 
remarkable  book,  "The  Changing  Chinese," 
might  be  quoted  almost  literally  in  describing 
the  causes  responsible  for  the  double  standard 
of  morals,  with  all  its  attendant  evils,  in  Christ- 
ian countries. 

"Balancing  their  burdens  against  those  of  the 
men,  it  is  clear  that  the  laws  governing  wom- 
an's life  are  not  for  the  sake  of  society  or  the 
race  so  much  as  for  the  male  sex.  In  its  every 
chapter  Chinese  culture  is  man-made  and  be- 
trays the  native  male  viewpoint.  Although 
necessary,  woman  is  inferior  and  must  be  held 
under  firm  control.  The  sages  stressed  the 
danger  of  letting  women  become  educated  and 


The  Damnable  Double  Standard     309 

go  about  freely,  for  thus  might  women  gain 
the  upper  hand  and  wreck  society. 

''From  the  male  viewpoint  it  is  fitting  that 
woman  be  sacrificed  to  man,  but  not  that  man 
be  sacrificed  to  woman.  .  .  . 

"The  wife  guilty  of  unfaithfulness  is  to  be 
stoned,  drowned,  or  hanged.  ...  If  a  husband 
be  found  unfaithful,  his  wife  has  a  right  to 
scold  him  good  and  hard,  and  he  ought  not  to 
beat  her  for  it,  either. 

"Nothing  could  be  plainer  than  that  woman's 
lot  in  China  is  not  of  her  own  fashioning,  but 
has  been  shaped  by  male  tastes  and  prejudices, 
without  regard  to  what  women  themselves 
think  about  it.  The  men  have  determined 
woman's  sphere  as  well  as  man's.  The  ancient 
sages — all  men, — molded  the  institutions  that 
bear  upon  women,  and  it  is  male  comment,  not 
really  public  opinion,  that  enforces  the  con- 
ventionalities that  crush  her.  By  wit,  will,  or 
worth,  the  individual  woman  may  slip  from  un- 
der the  thumb  of  the  individual  man, — there 
are  many  such  cases, — but  never  could  the  sex 
free  itself  from  the  domination  of  the  male  sex. 
The  men  had  all  the  artillery, — the  time-hal- 
lowed teachings  and  institutions, — and  all  the 


310  The  Crime  of  Silence 

small  arms, — current  opinion  and  comment. 
Cribbed  and  confined,  the  women  were  with- 
out schooling,  locomotion,  acquaintance,  con- 
versation, stimulus,  contact  with  affairs,  access 
to  ideas,  or  opportunity  to  work  out  their  own 
point  of  view." 

But  even  in  the  tradition-bound  Orient,  as 
well  as  throughout  Christendom,  the  women 
are  rebelling  against  man-made  laws ;  they  are 
demanding  that  they  be  governed  by  the  same 
civil  and  moral  codes  that  apply  to  men.  They 
are  insisting  on  a  higher,  cleaner,  purer  stand- 
ard of  society  than  that  which  obtained  in  the 
past,  a  standard  to  which  men  shall  measure 
up  as  well  as  women,  or  be  ostracized,  even  as 
women  have  been  ostracized  for  not  living  up 
to  the  standard  established  for  them  by  men. 

The  leaven  of  the  feminine  ideal,  which  is 
slowly  gaining  admission  into  the  life  of  the 
world,  is  already  working  a  mighty  revolution 
in  society.  Woman's  activities  in  the  modern 
world  are  hastening  the  evolution  of  the  race 
to  higher  levels. 

There  was  a  time  when  polygamy  was  not 
only  universal  but  was  also  respected.  We 
read  in  Holy  Writ  that  the  wise  King  Solomon 


The  Damnable  Double  Standard     311 

had  a  thousand  wives.  All  through  the  Old 
Testament  references  are  made  to  the  numer- 
ous wives  of  men.  Many  things  were  allowed 
in  the  early  history  of  the  race  which  would  not 
be  tolerated  to-day.  More  and  more,  as 
woman  climbs  to  her  rightful  place,  that  as- 
signed her  at  the  beginning  by  the  Creator, 
does  man  tend  to  become  a  higher  and  nobler 
being. 

A  century  ago  the  mistresses  of  kings  and 
emperors  ruled  the  courts  of  the  world.  Rul- 
ers carried  on  their  amours  openly,  in  defiance 
of  all  the  ideals  of  morality  or  decency.  High 
government  officials  were  obliged  to  recognize 
their  favorites  and  bow  to  their  tremendous  so- 
cial and  political  power. 

The  rulers  of  to-day  must  at  least  preserve 
the  appearance  of  morality.  They  must  cover 
up  their  intrigues,  hide  them  from  the  world, 
thus  showing  a  little  respect  for  public  opinion 
and  an  improvement  in  the  ideal  of  masculine 
morals.  A  hundred  years  ago  men  in  general 
led  immoral  lives  much  more  openly  than  at 
present.  These  things  are  more  and  more  cov- 
ered and  carried  on  in  secret,  showing  the  grow- 
ing change  in  society's  view  not  only  of  sexual 


312  The  Crime  of  Silence 

immorality  but  also  of  all  other  forms  of  ^dce. 
Men  are  being  forced  to  clean  up  their  lives  in 
every  direction.  Compare,  for  example,  the 
drinking  habits  of  men  in  public  life  to-day 
with  those  of  the  corresponding  classes  of.  a 
hundred  years  ago.  It  was  a  conmion  thing 
for  great  lawyers  of  that  time  to  be  so  drunk  at 
important  trials  that  they  would  scarcely  know 
what  they  were  doing.  Urgent  cases  would 
sometimes  have  to  be  postponed  until  the  legal 
lights  had  recovered  from  their  debauches.  It 
was  the  usual  thing  for  hquors  to  be  kept  in 
stores  and  all  sorts  of  places  of  business  for  em- 
ployers and  employees.  Clergymen,  deacons 
and  other  officials  of  the  church  often  drank  to 
excess.  At  public  dinners  and  on  other  public 
occasions  it  was  not  unusual  for  men  to  drink 
until  they  fell  under  the  table,  and  the  man 
who  could  drink  the  most  men  under  the  table 
was  looked  up  to  by  the  others  as  a  superior 
man. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  go  back  even  so  far  to 
accentuate  the  marked  change  in  social  stand- 
ards. It  is  not  very  long  since  our  public  men 
would  brag  about  the  large  number  of  their 
illicit  sex  relations  and  boast  of  debauching 


The  Damnable  Double  Standard    313 

innocent  girls.  Gambling  was  universal,  and 
it  was  a  common  thing  for  members  of  our  na- 
tional congress  and  senate  to  stagger  to  their 
seats.  They  would  often  have  to  be  removed 
in  a  state  of  beastly  intoxication. 

For  centuries  the  sowing  of  wild  oats  by 
youths  and  young  men  was  considered  justifi- 
able, even  necessary  for  a  well-poised,  virile 
youth.  It  was  thought  that  every  boy  who  was 
going  to  make  a  real  man  "must  have  his  fling." 
Indeed,  because  of  the  beastliness  of  men  in  the 
earlier  history  of  the  race  for  ages,  the  mutual 
loyalty  of  men  and  women  was  thought  prac- 
tically impossible.  But,  as  the  race  rises 
higher  in  the  scale  of  civilization,  these  ideals 
and  practices  are  passing  away  and  higher  and 
purer  standards  of  morals  and  conduct  are  tak- 
ing their  place. 

*' There  was  a  long  era  when  the  separate 
standard  of  morals  for  the  two  sexes  was  ac- 
cepted by  all  good  people,"  says  Ella  Wheeler 
Wilcox.  "  *Boys  will  be  boys'  was  the  ex- 
treme of  criticism  passed  on  a  fallen  boy,  but 
any  girl  who  lost  her  reputation  was  shunned 
and  shut  from  all  respectable  circles  save  the 


314  The  Crime  of  Silence 

back  pews  of  a  church,  where  she  must  go 
veiled,  and  the  only  doors  open  to  her  were 
those  of  the  convent,  the  Magdalene  Home,  or 
the  tomb.     But  the  world  has  changed  might- 

iiy-" 

Yes,  the  world  has  changed  wonderfully,  it 
is  true;  but  the  double  standard,  being  the 
strongest  and  most  firmly  entrenched  of  man- 
made  social  canons,  is,  naturally,  one  of  the 
most  difficult  to  displace;  and,  as  it  is  the  one 
that  has  wrought  most  evil  in  society,  so  its 
complete  abolition  will  do  more  to  lift  man- 
kind to  a  higher  plane  than  any  other  social  re- 
form. 

The  evils  of  this  double  standard — which 
should  be  properly  called  a  code  of  morality 
for  women  and  of  immorality  for  men, — have 
hitherto  been  carefully  concealed  from  those 
whom  they  most  injured,  but  the  great  femi- 
nine movement,  the  awakening  of  woman,  the 
revelations  of  sociologists, — all  these  are  bring- 
ing them  to  light,  and  light  is  death  to  all  evil. 
In  her  remarkable  book,  "Plain  Facts  About 
a  Great  Evil,"  Miss  Christabel  Pankhurst  has 
turned  such  a  fliood  of  illumination  on  this. 


The  Damnable  Double  Standard    315 

the  greatest  of  all  social  evils,  that  there  can 
no  longer  be  any  excuse  for  ignoring  it  or  try- 
ing to  cover  it  up. 

The  intelligent,  progressive  women  of  the 
world  are  rising  up  in  protest  against  the  in- 
sult it  perpetually  offers  to  their  womanhood. 
They  are  demanding  that  the  social  cancer  be 
cured  or  cut  out.  They  will  no  longer  shut 
their  eyes  to  the  existence  of  wickedness  be- 
cause it  is  practised  in  secrecy.  It  must  be 
abolished.  The  chief  thing  that  troubled  the 
inmioral  man  in  the  past  was  that  his  immoral- 
ity should  be  found  out.  Women  are  no 
longer  satisfied  with  the  covering  up  of  evil. 
They  are  going  to  insist  that  it  be  rooted  out, 
that  men  shall  be  morally  clean.  Every  intel- 
ligent, virtuous  girl  is  going  to  demand  that  the 
man  who  goes  to  the  altar  with  her  shall  go 
there  as  clean  as  he  demands  that  she  shall  go ; 
and,  if  he  doesn't,  she  will  not  go. .  If  he  goes 
at  all,  he  will  have  to  go  with  a  woman  of  his 
own  class ;  one  with  whom  he  has  secretly  con- 
sorted but  whom  he  has  openly  despised.  In 
the  future  it  is  going  to  be  impossible  for  an 
impure  man  to  marry  on  a  moral  plane  infi- 
nitely above  his  own,  as  he  has  done  in  the  past. 


316.  The  Crime  of  Silence 

It  is  also  going  to  be  impossible  for  him  to 
rob  a  woman  of  that  which  is  more  precious  to 
her  than  life  itself,  and  then  cast  her  off  as  a 
child  discards  a  broken  toy  without  any  fear  of 
being  called  to  account  by  society.  The  man 
who  would  think  it  a  disgrace  not  to  pay  a 
gambling  debt,  or  a  debt  of  "honor,"  so-called, 
but  would  not  hesitate  for  a  moment  to  aban- 
don a  poor  girl  whom  he  had  ruined  and  who 
would  not  feel  the  slightest  sense  of  respon- 
sibility for  the  unfortunate  child  he  had 
brought  into  life  and  branded  with  illegitimacy 
— this  sort  of  man  will  not  be  known  in  the 
future. 

Hitherto  boys  have  been  brought  up  to  think 
that  they  can  do  with  impunity  things  that  it 
would  be  unthinkable  for  their  sisters  to  do. 
The  idea  of  the  inferiority  of  women  has  been 
so  strongly  imprinted  on  their  consciousness 
that  it  has  utterly  confused  in  their  minds  the 
distinction  between  right  and  wrong  in  matters 
of  sex. 

I  know  a  boy  who  treats  his  sisters  as  if  they 
were  nobodies,  and  is  constantly  taunting  them 
with  his  superiority,  reminding  them  that  they 
are  girls  and  that  they  are  not  supposed  to 


The  Damnable  Double  Standard    317 

have  the  same  rights  and  privileges  as  men. 
"Don't  you  know  that  girls  can't  do  this  sort  of 
thing?"  is  a  favorite  expression  of  his  to  his 
sisters.  He  not  only  ha^  a  certain  scorn  for 
them,  but  even  for  his  mother,  because  his 
father  has  always  treated  the  women  of  his 
family  as  if  they  were  inferior  beings.  The 
boy  defers  to  his  father  and  to  older  men  in 
everything,  but  he  has  little  respect  for  women, 
especially  when  it  comes  to  a  question  of  opin- 
ion or  judgment  on  important  matters. 

Boys  and  girls  in  the  majorit}^  of  families 
have  become  so  accustomed  to  the  expressions, 
— "Oh,  he  is  a  boy,  and  you  know  boys  must 
have  their  liberty;  they  can't  be  sissies,"  and 
"Oh,  she  is  a  girl,  and  she  must  be  infinitely 
more  careful  than  boys.  She  can  not  do  this 
and  she  can  not  do  that,  because  she  is  a  girl," — 
that  they  have  come  to  draw  a  sharp  distinction 
between  the  moral  standards  of  the  sexes. 
They  have  come  to  think  that  men  can  do  many 
things  without  blame  which  it  would  be  sinful 
and  wicked  for  girls  to  do.  They  see  that 
boys  can  drink  and  indulge  in  all  other  sorts 
of  immorality  and  still  maintai^  a  good  stand- 
ing in  society,  while  girls  who  should  dare  to  do 


318  The  Crime  of  Silence 

such  things  would  be  condemned,  despised  and 
banished  from  the  society  of  all  pure,  decent 
people. 

This  pernicious  distinction  in  the  moral  train- 
ing of  youth  is  responsible  for  the  unfortunate 
impression  among  the  young  men  of  to-day 
that,  even  if  they  have  sown  their  wild  oats, 
even  if  they  have  been  guilty  of  all  sorts  of  in- 
discretions, they  can  come  to  the  marriage  altar 
without  any  compunction  or  remorse  for  their 
sins,  for  the  broken  laws  of  •  chastity,  which 
they  expect  their  chosen  life  partner  to  have 
kept  inviolate. 

This  one-sided  training  is  entirely  due  to 
man-made  social  laws,  to  man's  views  of  the 
sex  question,  which  have  always  been  colored 
by  his  own  interests,  his  own  selfish,  brutal  de- 
sires. In  his  assumption  of  superiority  he  has 
demanded  absolute  purity  in  the  woman  he  has 
married,  while  he  has  considered  it  all  right  to 
give  his  polluted  self  in  exchange  for  the  un- 
tarnished chastity  of  his  bride. 

The  vicious  double  standard  prevents  many 
men  from  marrying,  not  because  they  think 
they  are  unfit,  but  because  bachelorhood  allows 
them  greater  license. 


The  Damnable  Double  Standard     319 

Among  the  thousands  of  young  men  in  our 
cities  who,  financially,  are  in  splendid  position 
to  marry,  there  are  many  who  do  not  hesitate 
to  say  that  they  do  not  need  to,  because  they 
have  more  freedom  and  can  get  more  out  of 
life  by  remaining  single. 

Not  long  ago  I  asked  one  of  this  class,  a 
young  man  with  a  very  fair  income  and  a  splen- 
did outlook,  why  he  did  not  marry  and  have  a 
home  of  his  own.  "Well,"  he  replied,  "it 
doesn't  really  pay ;  and,  after  all,  what  is  there 
in  it  for  me  ?  In  New  York  a  man  can  always 
get  a  girl  when  he  wants  one,  and  he  doesn't 
have  to  bother  with  her  when  he  doesn't  want 
her!" 

He  added  that,  if  he  wished  to  go  to  Europe, 
he  could  pack  his  trunk  at  night  and  take  the 
steamer  the  next  morning  without  any  one  to 
object,  or  any  one  to  consult ;  and  that  he  could 
live  in  a  bachelor  apartment,  have  his  valet  to 
take  care  of  him,  eat  in  the  best  hotels  or 
restaurants,  have  a  good  time  whenever  and 
wherever  he  wanted,  and  be  free  from  all  re- 
sponsibility of  wife  or  children. 

In  many  cases  the  utter  selfishness  of  such 
men,  their  manner  of  living,  their  immoral 


820  The  Crime  of  Silence 

practices,  have  disqualified  them  for  ever  being 
really  in  love  with  women.  They  have  so  long 
violated,  outraged,  and  debauched  that  sacred 
sentiment,  the  love  instinct,  that  they  have  be- 
come immune  to  it.  Their  only  desire  in  re- 
gard to  women  is  the  gratification  of  their  ani- 
mal instincts,  and  they  know  that,  whether 
married  or  single,  society  in  general  will  wink 
at  their  immoral  practices. 

But. the  day  is  fast  coming  when  the  same 
treatment  that  is  accorded  immoral  women  will 
be  meted  out  to  immoral  men. 

A  new  ideal  of  the  coming  man,  the  coming 
woman,  is  being  formed  in  the  pubhc  mind  to- 
day. A  new  vista  regarding  the  possibilities 
of  the  child  is  opening  out  to  humanity.  In 
the  coming  time  we  shall  have  no  sowers  of 
wild  oats,  and  no  reapers,  because  the  double 
standard  of  morals  will  not  be  tolerated. 

The  new  woman  is  going  to  guard  the  very 
gates  of  life  as  has  never  been  done  in  the  past. 
She  is  not  going  to  be  satisfied  to  take  a  life 
partner  without  at  least  as  much  physical  ex- 
amination as  is  required  in  taking  out  a  life 
insurance  policy,  or  as  is  demanded  by  the  gov- 
ernment in  recruiting  soldiers  and  sailors  for 


The  Damnable  Double  Standard     321 

the  army  and  navy.  The  new  woman  will  cut 
off  from  her  visiting  list  all  double-standard 
men,  the  sort  of  men  who  to-day  live  dual  lives, 
who  habitually  wallow  in  moral  filth,  yet  are  re- 
ceived in  good  society  and  are  allowed  even  by 
mothers  to  associate  with  their  pure,  innocent 
daughters. 

The  great  scientist,  Alfred  Russel  Wallace, 
in  his  recent  book,  "Social  Environment  and 
Moral  Progress,"  predicts  that  the  position  of 
woman  in  the  not  distant  future  will  be  far 
higher  and  more  important  than  any  she  has 
ever  occupied  in  the  past.  He  says  that  in  the 
future  "she  will  be  placed  in  a  position  of  re- 
sponsibility and  power  which  will  render  her 
man's  superior,  since  the  future  welfare  and 
progress  of  the  race  will  so  largely  depend 
upon  her  free  choice  in  marriage." 

This  will  be  one  of  the  main  results  of  the 
new  and  higher  morality  which  will  accrue  from 
the  abolition  of  the  double  standard.  This  in 
turn  will  be  greatly  accelerated  by  the  new 
economic  independence  of  woman.  As  time 
goes  on  and  she  gains  more  and  more  financial 
independence,  it  will  allow  her  that  freedom 
of  choice  in  marriage  which  she  has  never  had 


322  The  Crime  or  Silence 

before.  This  freedom  of  choice  will  be 
strengthened  and  enhanced  by  the  fact  that, 
with  every  new  increase  of  those  qualities  which 
go  to  make  a  higher  race,  the  terrible  excess  of 
male  deaths  in  boyhood  and  early  manhood  will 
gradually  disappear,  and,  instead  of  the  pres- 
ent majority  of  women  in  the  world,  we  shall 
have  a  majority  of  men.  This  will  lead  to  a 
greater  rivalry  for  wives,  and  will  give  to 
woman  the  power  to  reject  all  the  lower  types 
of  character  for  the  superbest  types. 

This  does  not  by  any  means  imply  that 
woman  is  going  to  supplant  man  or  usurp  his 
rights.  It  simply  means  that  she  is  going  to 
come  into  her  own ;  that,  instead  of  walking  be- 
hind man,  in  his  shadow,  as  in  the  past,  she  is 
going  to  pull  an  even  yoke,  to  w^alk  by  his  side, 
so  that  in  the  future  our  human  government, 
the  whole  machinery  of  justice,  and  our  social 
institutions,  will  have  that  wholeness  and  com- 
pleteness, that  high  standard  which  can  only 
come  through  the  equal  cooperation  of  the 
sexes. 

The  movement  for  woman  suffrage  is  only 
one  phase  of  the  mighty  revolution  which  is  go- 
ing on  in  the  woman's  world.     The  vote  door 


The  Damnable  Double  Standard     323 

which  is  now  gradually  but  surely  swinging 
open  to  her  in  many  lands  is  only  one  of  many 
doors  which  are  already  ajar,  and  through 
which  she  will  soon  pass,  bringing  the  race  with 
her  to  a  higher  plane  of  morals,  manners,  and 
living. 

The  liquor  interests  and  those  that  profit 
by  vice  and  immorality  of  every  sort  are  op- 
posed to  woman's  suffrage,  because  they  know 
that,  when  women  everywhere  are  granted  the 
power  of  the  ballot,  their  power  to  make  com- 
mercial profit  by  pandering  to  men's  baser  pas- 
sions will  be  in  jeopardy. 

One  of  the  secrets  of  the  Englishman's  bit- 
ter protest  against  woman's  suffrage  lies  in  the 
sex  question.  When  women  get  the  vote  in 
England,  as  elsewhere,  they  will  wipe  from  the 
statute  books  the  laws  that  so  shamefully  dis- 
criminate against  their  sex,  in  all  questions  of 
sexual  morality,  in  favor  of  men.  The  age- 
old  question  of  man,  "The  woman  thou  gavest 
me  she  has  sinned.  What  shall  I  do  with  her?" 
will  then  be  changed.  Neither  morality  nor 
justice  will  be  sex-labeled. 

When  women  are  enfranchised,  they  will  not 
long  tolerate  the  heinous  injustice  of  one  code 


324  The  Crime  of  Silence 

of  morals  for  women  and  another  and  far  dif- 
ferent for  men.  A  man's  public  life,  a  success- 
ful professional  or  business  career,  will  not  al- 
ways be  a  cloak  for  covering  a  wretched  pri- 
vate character.  The  double  standard  will  go 
when  woman  has  an  equal  voice  with  man  in 
framing  legislation.  She  will  then  have  infi- 
nitely more  influence  in  the  forming  of  social 
conditions.  Women  of  the  future  will  not  per- 
mit their  sisters  to  be  exploited  and  outraged 
to  feed  the  low  passions  of  men.  When  women 
get  the  ballot,  they  will  not  permit  men  to  hire 
youths  openly  to  debase  and  ruin  young  girls. 
They  will  not  tolerate  conditions  that  are  likely 
to  transmit  the  poisons  of  loathsome  diseases 
to  unborn  children  to  handicap  them  for  life 
with  deformities  or  mental  deficiencies. 

It  is  woman's  very  instinct  to  protect  the 
home,  the  children,  and  she  knows  that  saloons 
and  disreputable  houses  are  the  worst  enemies 
of  the  home.  She  knows  that  they  threaten 
the  very  virtues  and  hazard  the  success  of  her 
children,  and  who  can  doubt  that  she  will  fight 
for  the  well-being  of  those  for  whom  she  has 
risked  her  life?  Woman  has  been  an  uphfting 
influence  in  every  situation  of  life,  and  it  is 


The  Damnable  Double  Standard     325 

only  natural  that  she  should  be  the  same  in  poli- 
tics, a  field  from  which  she  has  been  arbitrarily 
shut  out  by  the  selfishness  and  meanness  of 
men,  who  flatter  her  by  calling  her  their  su- 
perior, telling  her  she  is  an  angel,  and  then  in- 
sult her  by  denying  her  the  very  rights  they 
claim  for  themselves ! 

It  is  a  strange  thing  that  man,  who  has  ever 
vaunted  himself  as  the  great  chivalrous  pro- 
tector of  woman,  should  be  so  cruel  to  her  in 
framing  laws  against  her  and  in  making  pub- 
lic sentiment  in  favor  of  himself  and  against 
her  in  all  sex  matters. 

This  is  the  great  trouble  with  society  to-day. 
The  laws  are  man-made.  They  are  pointed  to- 
wards man,  fitted  for  him;  and  they  are  en- 
forced or  not,  just  in  proportion  as  they  affect 
man's  desires.  JNIan  alone  will  not  enforce  the 
law  which  he  himself  wants  to  break,  but  any 
woman  will  insist  upon  penalizing  that  which 
she  knows  debauches  her  husband  and  men- 
aces perpetually  her  children  and  her  home. 
Wherever  woman  has  dominated,  she  has  re- 
fined, elevated,  and  purified.  She  has  made 
the  home  the  purest,  sweetest  place  on  earth; 
and,  when  she  gets  the  power,  she  will  certainly 


326  The  Crime  of  Silence 

insist  on  a  clean  and  equal  standard  of  public 
as  well  as  private  morals. 

In  Norway,  where  women  have  the  full 
parliamentary  vote,  a  long  delayed  measure 
of  justice  has  been  accorded  the  unmarried 
mother  and  her  child.  Every  illegitimate  child 
is  insured  the  right  to  its  father's  name  and 
property,  and  the  mother  is  also  provided  for. 
Compare  this  with  the  usual  situation  in  coun- 
tries where  men  alone  make  the  laws,  where  the 
unmarried  mother  and  her  child  are  outside  the 
pale  of  the  law. 

While  I  write,  the  males  of  Great  Britain 
including  the  Government,  the  Established 
Church  and  the  Press  are  gravely  discussing 
the  question  of  "forgiving"  the  unmarried 
mothers  of  "war  babies,"  for  their  lapse  from 
virtue,  but  not  a  word  do  we  hear  about 
"forgiving"  the  fathers.  Oh,  no,  as  usual  in 
such  matters  there  is  nothing  to  be  forgiven 
them  because  they  are  men.  But  the  women 
of  England  are  raising  their  voices  and  pro- 
tests as  never  before,  and  through  their  efforts, 
if  full  responsibility  is  not  brought  home  to  the 
fathers  of  the  unfortunate  babies,  it  is  to  be 


The  Damnable  Double  Standard    327 

hoped  that  at  least  some  measure  of  justice 
will  be  secured  for  the  mothers.  In  our  coun- 
try, wherever  women  have  succeeded  in  win- 
ning political  rights,  the  age  of  consent  has 
been  raised  to  eighteen  years ;  whereas,  in  most 
places,  where  men  alone  make  laws,  it  is  still 
between  fourteen  and  sixteen. 

In  the  past,  having  had  all  the  power  in  their 
own  hands,  men  have  always  stood  by  one  an- 
other in  covering  up  their  moral  turpitude,  and 
in  being  lenient  to  their  vices. '  Furthermore, 
male  physicians  have  carefully  kept  the  secrets 
and  shielded  the  reputation  of  immoral  men, 
even  when  their  sins  have  wrecked  their  homes, 
made  invalids  of  their  wives,  and  cursed  their 
children  for  life. 

Man's  ideal  has  dominated  society  in  the 
past.  Woman's  is  now  coming  to  the  front. 
On  every  hand,  in  spite  of  liiuch  sensational 
talking  and  writing  to  the  contrary,  there  are 
indications  of  an  upward  trend.  The  univer- 
sal movement  for  the  enfranchisement  of 
women,  equal  education  for  both  sexes,  the  en- 
trance of  women  into  the  so-called  learned  pro- 
fessions and  especially  the  steady  increase  in 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 
BERKELEY 

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REC  D  LD 

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